


The Impossible Dream

by Sam I Am (Sam_I_Am89)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:46:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1856907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sam_I_Am89/pseuds/Sam%20I%20Am
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an incomplete Dementor's kiss, Sirius Black can not remember who he was, or anything about this man who cares for him, who says he was his friend. What could have happened if that night in the Shack had ended differently?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Invincible

**Author's Note:**

> The story inspired by the lyrics for the song "The Impossible Dream" by Andy WIlliams:
> 
>  
> 
> And the world will be better for this, that one man scorned and covered with scars,  
> Still strove with his last ounce of courage...  
> To fight the unbeatable foe; To reach the unreachable star.
> 
>  
> 
> My feedback monster is hungry; any comment donations would be greatly appreciated.

Part One: Invincible 

  _It’s the devil’s smile which I notice first; wicked and wide and tempting. Persuasion was defined by the curve of his lips as he approached, silently, stealthily. This son of darkness did not need to explain what he wanted. All he had to do was smirk in that way and fix me with a fervent glazed look, “Come with me.”_

_I focussed on the book resting against my thighs although I couldn’t quite get the words to translate into comprehendible English in my head, “Where’s James and Peter?”_

_My friend pouted slightly, shoulders slumping as he sat on the edge of the mattress, inches from my socked feet, “With the fair Miss Evans and off scoffing his face in the Kitchen respectively.” Unnatural eyes, too silver, too untarnished, turned on me, “Please Moony. It’s our last night!”_

_I frowned and turned the page, “No, it’s not. Tomorrow is our last night which is why we’ve all planned things to do tonight, which is our penultimate night, so we would be free for the drunken rituals and mischief making!”_

_“And you planned to read?!” The devil mocked and pleaded all in the same breath, “Mooooooo-ny! Your childhood is slipping away from you by the second and all you want to do is pore over some philosophical wank, no doubt, when you could be out actually doing something!”_

_I wavered; I always waver. I can’t help it when Sirius tempts me with melodrama and a smile which promises fun. It is a compulsion of mine to consider for a moment, if only for a moment, that I would have a much better time adventuring with Sirius than I would sat here reading. Of course, as always, it took no longer than a brief instant of surrender and I was bewitched, ensnared by eyes glinting madly as long clever fingers snatched up my thin wrist and pulled me from the dormitory._

_“You won’t regret it, Moony. I promise.” He winked lewdly, turning on that trademark smile again, “The ladies will envy you above all others; the last person to partake in an adventure with Sirius Black, the famous and dashing Auror! O, what a night, Moony! O, what a momentous night!”_

_‘A seriously Black night,’ I thought, ‘In all senses and meanings…’_

_I could’ve asked ‘where are we going?’ but I figured it was probably straight to Hell so I didn’t bother. We had no Marauders Map or Invisibility Cloak, but it didn’t matter. This was our last escapade as boys, just the two of us. No doubt I would wake in the morning with scraped knees, violet bruising and muscles aching all over, dried mud in my ears and unable to quite remember why I’d allowed this boy, this insane boy, to drag me from the safety of literature and out into the realm of perils unknown in the first place._

_This was always the case and yet I still allowed myself to be distracted every time, to be lead into the midst of the dark after-curfew hours, where adventure was thick in the air and the only thing we had to worry about was being caught by McGonagall… or one of Sirius’ hair-brained schemes backfiring and landing us all in the Hospital Wing._

_We climbed past the Fat Lady, who had given up reprimanding us in fourth year, and into the darkened portrait-lined corridors, walking stealthily through secret passages hewn out of stone and down staircases. We didn’t speak; not because we were frightened of being caught, but because we didn’t need to fill the silence._

_Maturity is an odd thing. When you grow up everything is so complicated, especially during times of war when no one is safe and anyone could be a traitor. And so, we were clinging to childhood, clinging to our last strands of innocence. Once we lost them, we would gain responsibility and no longer be able to say that there was nothing we could do to save the world._

_Though Sirius denied we’d reached adulthood just yet, we were already old enough to accept silence and perhaps too old to be pulling pranks and looking for buried treasure (as we had done two weeks previously). Yet I didn’t feel old enough to be pushed out into the world, where danger was more than just a game, where people barely older than us died every day…_

_We reached a picture of a fairground on the Second floor and Sirius pushed his hands against the top of the helter-skelter, falling through the layer of canvas and oil paint and disappearing. I followed, sliding head first down the spiral slide and landing on prickly too-dry grass._

_I stood and brushed myself off as Sirius nodded his head to the left and we began walking again across the star-lit grounds. The breeze was warm, but thankfully the air was not humid. We passed the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest and from within I could hear the muffled stillness broken only by the rustling of the canopy. I remembered the times I had galloped to the very centre, air rushing past me full of the scent of pine and freedom, remembered the way the trees had seemed so eerily beautiful when the white moon fixed on them._

_“What are the plans for tonight then? Nothing too illegal, Padfoot. I hardly fancy going straight to Azkaban the moment I step off the Hogwarts Express.”_

_Sirius laughed, flicking me that sinner’s smile again, “Spoil sport.”_

_We fell back into companionable quiet as we strolled through the summer silence, moon only a faint shadow in the expanse above our heads, no glimmer of light from it at its half-cycle. The boy beside me spoke up again, “And there is no plan; I’m winging it.”_

_I was surprised (there was always a plan; or at least the general objective which involved torturing Slytherins) and glanced at my companion. Maturity is a secretive thing too; there was something old in Sirius’ expression behind the eyes glinting with boyish excitement. Something sombre and contemplative, something carefully placed out of my sight. I had seen it there a few times over the past year; recognised the same look in all of our faces now._

_I smiled, shaking off the morbid thought of growing up too quickly, and spoke in a discretely goading tone, “No plan?! No daring and heroic jaunt into lands where neither Gryffindors nor sane human beings have e’er ventured before?! Considering the size of our pack tonight, I was expecting the worst; a stealth mission, most likely into the Slytherin Common Room to transfigure Snape into a girl and to poison the entire Quidditch team!”_

_“There will be enough mayhem tomorrow alone to have our names elevated to god-like status,” Sirius’ voice had quietened ever so slightly, “And turning Snape into a girl can only be amusing so many times…”_

_I chuckled and glanced at my friend only to notice he’d stopped. We were close to the Whomping Willow and Sirius’ grey eyes persuaded me before he had even asked the question on his mind, “What d’ya say? A final farewell?”_

_I gave a shrug and followed as Sirius transformed, bounding through the flailing branches and nosing the knot which froze it. I walked forward marvelling at how very much the black dog resembled a Grim; it seemed apt that loyal daring Sirius became this fearsome emblem of death, tongue lolling out of his powerful jaws, tail wagging as his friend approached._

_I followed my best-friend into the dark tunnel, the earthy gateway to Hell on Earth. I’d been avoiding the Shack since my last transformation. I hated the place, walls stained with invisible pain, my howls still echoing in the empty, sheet-covered rooms._

_The dog bounded up to beneath the trapdoor and I opened it, climbing through before the Devil returned to his most dangerous form. He swiped a hand through his dark hair rakishly before hoisting himself into the entrance hall._

_I looked around at the claw marks in the walls, the chunks of wood and cushion that had been ripped from the sofa by fangs and then at my friend who was already climbing the staircase, rotting planks creaking and whining with every tread._

_I followed and we stepped into the old master bedroom, just as battered and beaten up as the rest of the house. I blinked and then looked around the room. This room was different… Instead of agony, I could see James with his antlers caught in the bed curtains, Peter producing a breakfast basket with a flourish and a proud smile when I thanked him, Sirius’ grey dog eyes fixed on the leg of one of the kitchen chairs, tail wagging slightly as he anticipated it being thrown._

_Something warm like laughter bubbled up within me and I smiled as I noticed the hole in the floorboard where James had stamped a hoof too hard. I saw the tartan blanket folded neatly on top of the wardrobe that the wolf hadn’t been able to reach; the same blanket which my friends had always wrapped me up in when the full moon finally released me._

_I turned, eyes roving over a room which suddenly seemed far less morbid and terrifying. I noticed Sirius leaning against one of the bedposts idly, long shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, not sitting on the mattress as it had already collapsed partially on one side. He was watching me with a strangely soft smile, raising an eyebrow to speak without words._

_I smiled back and shook my head in wonder. Somehow Sirius had known that I’d needed closure, even though I hadn’t even thought about it myself. This place was more than just some hell-hole where I’d been caged up every full moon for seven years; these shaky unstable walls and broken-down furnishings were the foundations of our friendship. And now, with steadily advancing maturity, I finally found the perspective I had needed all along._

_I wondered how Sirius did it, how he could always know instinctively exactly what his friends needed at any given time. To everyone else, he was as unreachable as the stars; only the Marauders were gifted with such unconditional light. When Sirius loved you, he blazed and his brightness would illuminate you, giving you hope or courage or granting the secret most desperate wishes of your heart._

_Silently, Sirius sat on the floor and held out a small hip-flask towards me, smile still not reverting back to its normal mischievous and charming self. It seemed to faintly draw up at the corners, eyes too dark to consult for an explanation in the gloomy Shack._

_Joining him, I took the flask and a swig without question, wincing at the familiar warmth which struck the back of my throat as I swallowed. I was going to make some comment about Sirius trying to seduce me with alcohol before noticing it was only about half full. I passed it back and Sirius took a large swig without even the smallest flinch. I guessed Sirius had already done some drinking, although why he’d been drinking alone I couldn’t fathom._

_“Thanks…” I muttered, not quite sure what exactly I was thanking him for. Everything most probably; for bringing me here, for the fire whiskey, for not letting the Shack fester in my memory for the rest of eternity, for being my best friend, for becoming an animagi, for wanting me to be present in his final moments as a boy, moments I knew he was savouring._

_Sirius didn’t reply, his face obscured by shadow and strands of jet hair as he took another larger swig of the liquor before pushing it towards me again. I took it, but didn’t drink, watching my companion with slight worry, waiting for any kind of response._

_It was as I swallowed again that Sirius said flatly, “James is asking Lily to marry him…”_

_All I could do was open my mouth and then I closed it again when no sound came out. I stared at the flask in my hands. No wonder Sirius was slightly off; now it was finally official that James wanted to be grown up, to get married, have kids, the whole package. But of course that left Sirius stuck wanting to stay young, marauding and adventuring forever. And everyone knows that adventuring is not much fun alone, especially when your best friend has grown out of it._

_Sirius continued in a subdued tone, “I helped him pick out the ring a couple of weeks ago, last Hogsmeade weekend before exams. He’s asked me to be best man, if she says yes of course…”_

_I nodded and swallowed another mouthful of the hot alcohol, hoping to give myself a few seconds to judge the situation before holding it out towards my friend. Instead of taking it, Sirius looked at it for a moment before his eyes rose slowly to mine._

_Looking at a face up that close should really make it easier to see all the imperfections in it, but instead the proximity seemed to make my head go fuzzy. Sirius Black was always a striking figure to behold, larger than life, but up close he seemed so vulnerably human, blurred and smudged around the eyes. It was a terrifying perspective and I suddenly found I wanted him to move backwards a foot or so where he was always the immortal god-like Sirius Black who laughed with a deep bark in the face of danger, caused all maidens to swoon with only a glance and scared dark Knights with mad eyes and an invincible grin._

_I frowned slightly and looked away, eyes seeking out the stars through the splinter cracks in the boarded up windows. I spoke in a tone I hoped would put my friend’s mind at rest, “One of us was bound to fall hard eventually, Padfoot.”_

_Sirius gave a low dark laugh, as if he knew some deep irony to the world’s workings that I did not, “Damn hard.”_

_I sighed, shifting awkwardly where I sat on hard squeaky floorboards, holding out a hand to retrieve the fire whiskey again, “It was always obvious it wasn’t just a crush.”_

_“No, not a… Definitely more than a crush…”_

_“If you can know someone for seven years and still want to be with them, then I think it’s fair to say that you can’t just get rid of that.”_

_I glanced at my still empty hand and shook it in Sirius’ direction more emphatically repeating my silent request for the hipflask, but Sirius’ fingers did not budge, “It won’t go away, Moony…”_

_Something in his tone caused my head to fill with a myriad of memories; Sirius sitting with me in the library for no apparent reason, Sirius’ eyes filled with anxiety and worry when I awoke after a transformation, Sirius laughing at Snape and then clearing his throat awkwardly and stopping when I fixed him with a disapproving look, Sirius begging me to forgive him after the Incident in Sixth Year, Sirius smiling softly when he gave me a birthday present, smiling softly whenever only I could see…_

_I froze._

_Sirius wasn’t talking about James._

_My eyes hurriedly flicked up to the shadowed face beside me. My friend was frowning, looking almost angry as he gritted his jaw, shoulder tense. His cheeks were flushed with humiliation and he glared at me with a familiar defiance as if daring me to laugh. But I didn’t think I’d seen anything less funny in my life._

_All I could do was stare back as my best friend pursed his mouth tightly, fighting back all the emotions rattling around in his taut frozen frame before pushing himself up off the floor, so fast and blurred as if he was a tornado, moving towards the closed door…_

_It wasn’t until my nose collided with another nose and my mouth caught another that I realised I’d slammed Sirius into the door. My friend gasped in pain, his hip having clattered against the door knob, the soft sound vibrating through the shared air and fused lips. The split second seemed to drag on as I tried to understand what exactly was going on. I couldn’t. All I could fathom was that mine and Sirius’ lips were crushed together between two sets of teeth, that I was pressing my friend’s back up against the cracking paint and gauged slashes on the bedroom door, that one of my hands was fisted in Sirius’ shirt…_

_The kiss was not much of a kiss at all; more like a fierce indecision, not knowing whether to pull away or hold on forever. A blurred uncertain divide between boy and man, best friend and lover, me and Sirius, where neither of us were any of those things, but were somewhere scrambled and awkward in the middle._

_But before I could consider any more, my other hand was tangled in thick black hair and Sirius made a noise as if he couldn’t breathe, but didn’t want to. The kiss deepened, hot and impulsive, and suddenly Sirius’ hands were touching my face, my neck, unbuttoning my shirt. My head was full of heat and lust-hazed awareness, unnatural to me, lifting my hands away and shrugging off the thin shirt material. I could feel my friend’s body heat through his shirt as our chests squashed together, could feel his heavy heartbeat at the junction and there was something in the moment, something I could taste along with the fire whiskey, that stirred up some hidden desire I’d never felt before._

_I had to gasp for air, clutching at that perfect face as we moved even closer together. Sparks crackled up my spine and I shuddered at the new contact between our bodies. As the sharp flicker of pleasure faded, the darkness surrounding us swallowing it, Sirius shifted against me and the feeling jolted through us again. The sparks came in crackling waves and my limbs trembled with it, but I couldn’t stop, even if for some wild reckless moment I had wanted to._

_Something seemed to snap within my friend as if the shock suddenly shattered and he strained fervently to get even closer, rolling our bodies until he had my scrawny frame pinned to the door roughly. The flakes of once-white paint itched as they splintered and ingrained themselves into my bare back, but I barely noticed._

_I heard a faint ripping sound beneath the execution drums in my ears; my hands suddenly finding smooth chest through his ruined shirt. I wanted nothing more than to be closer, to be so close that we would never be pulled apart. I wanted to be part of Sirius, part of the wild and brilliant boy I’d known for seven years. I hooked one of my legs up around Sirius’ hips, trapping us together as we pushed against one another with aggressive hunger._

_Everything became frantic and breathless, dreamlike in detail but with pleasure stark and clear as I found myself clinging on to this human hurricane for dear life. Every brush of clothed flesh on clothed flesh began to burn. I wondered how two bodies could become so muddled together, limbs tangled and shaking, hearts beating through bone, bare centimetres apart._

_My friend forced me not to break the fervent kiss, holding us together as if the moment the kiss ended we would have to stop, that I would realise it was all a mistake. But right now I could not think about consequence, could not think of anything but how incredible it felt to have those blazing fingertips scrape my scarred skin with intention, making me beautiful._

_Something in the pit of my stomach began to twist and tighten, like panic, as each rough touch became more desperate, quickening. My thigh tightened around that body, feeling every single muscle contract in that wiry frame as it tautened against mine. I kept pressing, digging my nails into the animagus’ muscular back as he healed me with a magic I had never known and then everything suddenly broke._

_My breath hitched painfully as I gasped and cried out at the same time. I clung on to that other body knowing the moment either of us stopped holding on, we would both collapse. My leg shook vigorously and I fought to keep upright, fought to support and balance that other body as well as my own as the darkness consumed us, exploding from behind our eyes and from all around us. In a single moment, we both shattered and were reformed, fission and fusion coursing through every blood vessel, submerging every cell. For just a moment, my friend took away my curse and I was holy and human again…_

_Swiftly, all residual strength was spent and Sirius’ legs gave way at the knees. We were sliding to the floor in a washed-out heap, unable to release our rigid grip on each other as we shook with the afterglow._

_I tried to open my eyes, unable to move my leaden limbs. My sore mouth hovered close to another shadowy pair of parted lips and a face with half-lidded eyes. Fast wavering breaths were echoed from my own mouth by Sirius’, trembling past my cheek as my eyelids lifted slightly._

_I leaned forward slightly, our damp foreheads pressing together as I continued to breathe raggedly, wearily. Every moment of it was less clear than it had been a few seconds before, all the sensation fading, disappearing into some void._

_I was myself again, cursed, scarred, ordinary... and I hated it._

_My naked chest rose and fell and my heart began to slow slightly, tendrils of adrenaline still densely coiling in my bloodstream. But Sirius still had not moved. I wondered if I was supposed to explain, if that was what he was waiting for. But I couldn’t speak, breathless, struck dumb by the sudden impossible emotions that had risen up in me, logic and balance reeling from the miracle I had witnessed._

_My eyes trailed over Sirius’ hands, still lying against my thin torso, my scar-stained skin pale in the darkness. They were hands I’d seen a million times, seemingly unremarkable. However when they’d touched me, it had felt like those fingerprints could make me whole again, fill the jagged cracks in my flesh and my mind with just a touch. I had felt like I could do anything, like I was invincible._

_I watched in awe as the palm that hovered over my hammering heart pressed down shakily, doubtfully, and I lifted my eyes. Our foreheads were still touching and I shivered as my world was narrowed down to just Sirius’ eyes. Sirius’ eyes were there in the darkness, the only thing that mattered, the only thing that existed… I clenched my sapped hands as best I could around the ripped remains of the shirt my friend wore, suddenly never wanting to lose that touch._

_I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, trying to hear sense amongst the din of conflicting emotions, trying to block out that strange look in those eyes before me. I didn’t know what to do; was I in love with Sirius? Was that what this was? This adoration, this awe? Had I always been or was it an epiphany? Could anyone other than Sirius ever love me if they knew what I was? I’d resigned myself to never feeling love, to never be touched by someone who was not disgusted by my scars, by my curse. It had taken me so long to accept my fate gracefully, with as little bitterness as possible; how could I ever muster that acceptance again now I knew how this felt?_

_There were no answers, nothing, and all I could do was state the only sparse fragment of fact I had possession of, releasing a gasping humourless laugh, “I… I can’t let go.”_

_Sirius’ nose brushed mine; his strong familiar hands tightened their grip. His voice was not coupled with a charismatic grin and cheeky wink; it was hoarse and trembling, full of frightened prayers, “Then don’t… ” My vision blurred, eyes stinging, overwhelmed, unsure. Those frightened fingers became more insistent, filled with the same persuasion they had been when they pulled me from the dormitory, but now they shook with desperation, “Don’t ever…”_

_I had to. I knew I had to. This was wrong; by tomorrow I’d regret the whole thing, realise it was nothing but misplaced and confused emotions. This wasn’t real…_

_The irony was that Sirius had never seemed more real in his life._

_I jerked backwards slightly, wanting to let go, but instead, my biceps contracted and I collided with Sirius’ mouth again, tears stinging as they coated the bags under my eyes. My friend clutched at my face and kissed me hard, seeming to release a sob, half-way between relief and despair, pressing himself as desperately into the touch as I realised I was._

_As if trying to lessen the pain, the animagus wrenched his lips from the kiss quickly. His eyes remained closed as he breathed, words rough and raw from his throat, “Come with me.”_

_The strange hush to my friend’s voice worried me almost as much as those sinful eyes ever had._

_“Where?”_

_Sirius had asked me to follow him so many times and I had never asked where, had always trusted him, despite the fact his eyes and smirk had indicated the evil of the pranks I’d find myself aiding and abetting him with._

_This star continued to hold on to my skinny form as if I were the only thing preventing him from being sucked into space by a black hole. He growled out the answer with urgency, “Somewhere. Anywhere. Away from all this. Just me and you…” His voice faltered slightly and his eyes opened, young fearful eyes, “Just me and you somewhere far away… somewhere safe…”_

_“We can’t…” I whispered, something in my ribcage aching, “You know we can’t.”_

_At that moment, Sirius was still a boy, still young and scared. And then, like a sword being drawn, Sirius’ silver eyes glinted with gruelling devotion, strong and brave and hopeful. The black-haired man nodded slightly and then, after a few seconds when I wondered what my friend was thinking, he murmured gently, “Stay with me then…?”_

I gasped, chest heaving as my head swam, still full of those eyes, haunting eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut and sighed; the waning of the moon always drew with it restless nights and impossible dreams.

 For the shortest of moments, I wanted to fall back into the memory, into Sirius’ shocked smile and nervous happy laughter; instead I opened my eyes to the grey shabby bedroom and crawled out from under my covers.

 After all, it does not do to dwell on dreams...


	2. Incomplete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From dreams to reality - Remus wakes from his memories to the stranger who was his best friend...

Part Two: Incomplete  
  
 _~ Twenty-five years later ~_  


The sky is grey and dull and the world is filled with rain. His eyes are mirroring the sky. They show no sadness, but looking at them I feel grief, thick and unnatural as it, like the clouds, covers everything.  
  
He sits and stares out of the window a lot now. Silent. Lost.  
  
The drizzly November dawn has barely risen and the cottage is still dim inside, lit only by the muted light and the sooty paraffin lamp he’s lit. My thinned robes barely keep out the cold and my joints ache in the damp air, but all I do is wrap the coarse material slightly closer around me as I stand, watching him from the doorway.  
  
His dark hair is shorter than he used to like it, but he never complains when I cut it. I don’t know why I don’t just leave it to grow into the almost shoulder-length mane he’d had when we were young. Maybe it’s because, without his hair that way, he reminds me less of the Sirius I knew back then, the boy who had inspired me. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t care what length it is anymore. Maybe it’s because I want him to care… because then he would be himself again, his usual handsome-and-fully-aware-of-it self.  
  
He doesn’t look away from the window as I approach, slowly so as not to startle him. My voice is harsh to my ears when I speak, momentarily drowning out the crackling of the rain against the window pane, “You’re up early. Did you sleep well?”  
  
Sirius blinks unfocusedly and speaks, his voice seeming so far off and unnatural, “Fine. The rain woke me.”  
  
“Would you like a cup of tea?”  
  
He looks at me then, although he never meets my gaze, before he replies quietly, “Yes. Thank you, Remus.”  
  
“You’re welcome…” I say automatically, but he’s already lost to me again, grey eyes tarnished with amnesia and rain clouds.  
  
Even Sirius’ piercing light did not escape that black hole eight years ago. Dumbledore says that the Dementor’s kiss wasn’t completed; that most of Sirius still remains, locked away by his brain for protection, but I cannot see it.   
  
I have clung to every hope, to every shred of humanity left in his body, and yet eight whole years have passed by and he is still lost. The only place that he is whole is in my dreams now.  
  
I turn and walk into the kitchen, drawing out my wand and wearily flicking it at the kettle. Every morning is the same; every day is measured in the same sequence of hope and despair. Sirius’ memory is so fragile and I constantly worry that it will shatter; it took him over a year to remember my name and only in the past five years has he been able to recall the fact that I’m a werewolf without any reminding.  
  
It’s difficult for him. Knowing that faces and names should mean something when they don’t. He understands that we’ve been friends since we were boys, but that is only a fact he has been taught, like the alphabet or gravity. I spend every day with him and still my presence jogs no long lost recollection.   
  
It breaks my heart when Harry visits every Sunday. Sirius seems so much more distracted than usual, uncomfortable. He knows Harry is his godson, he knows that he sees him every week and yet, every time the young auror steps into the room and greets him, Sirius struggles to recognise his face. Harry, just like Sirius and I, is a victim of cruel fate. The night Sirius was Kissed, he asked Harry to come and live with him. He should’ve been able to fulfill his wish, to be the parent-figure Harry had always needed, but before James’ son even got to know the real Sirius, it was drained from him.  
  
And so, I am the only person left in the world who remembers exactly how Sirius was. That is my curse, worse than Lycanthropy. Other people don’t remember enough, don’t remember everything. But I always will, every single thing. I can’t forget and the past haunts me, filled with images of Sirius asking me to runaway with him in Seventh year. I am the only one who can bring Sirius back now or, at least, the fragments that remain.  
  
I sometimes wish I had taken up Fudge’s offer of a permanent healer in my place; he said it was the least he could do after such a ‘miscalculation’. Sirius would probably have been happier without the constant reminder that there are people like me who care about him, but that he can never remember why, can never return the sentiment. However, I declined the offer; whether he knows me or not, I don’t think I could bear any more time without him.  
  
I make the tea, setting out his customary Hurricanes Quidditch mug, chipped and faded. The only reason I keep using it is in the hope it may trigger some memory, but it never does. James bought him that mug for his thirteenth birthday along with a miscellaneous box of Zonko’s gifts. It was funny at the time because Sirius hated the Hurricanes; he was a Puddlemere United fan and had refused adamantly to drink from it. He’d given it to me and it has remained in my possession ever since.  
  
I carry the steaming mug back into the library, light beginning to improve. Sirius hasn’t moved from his chair beside the window; today is one of those days that I doubt he will at all.  
  
I lower the mug onto the windowsill, watching as a dribble of milky tea quivers at the chipped lip before slowly meandering down over the face of one of the Hurricanes beaters, waving his bat threateningly at me for my carelessness.  
  
“Remus?”  
  
“Yes?” I reply quietly, looking down at my friend’s drawn face, so dull and pale. His eyes haven’t shifted from the deluge outside, saturating the muddy grass and swelling up the stream at the bottom of the garden.   
  
“What day is it?”  
  
“It’s Saturday, Sirius. November 28th.”  
  
“Tomorrow is Sunday. Harry comes on Sundays. Harry is my godson. He has glasses.”   
  
Sirius speaks to himself, lists the things he knows. It sounds like madness, but it isn’t. He’s just frightened he will forget it if he doesn’t continually remind himself, trying to overcome the blank spaces and gaps in his recollection. It is an echo of my own mind. Except I list the things that Sirius doesn’t know, the things that keep me awake at night when all I can think about are the fingerprints that once filled my scars.  
  
He doesn’t remember Lily and James. He doesn’t remember Padfoot or even what an animagus is. He doesn’t remember Peter, that night at Godric’s Hollow or the Dementors either, which I am at least partly thankful for. He doesn’t remember Voldemort or the War we fought against him, the War Harry won against him.   
  
He doesn’t remember me… He barely remembers me now when I am just that eccentric werewolf who makes him endless cups of tea and waits in vain for the irreparable damage to reverse itself, for everything to come flooding back. He certainly doesn’t remember why I’m here with him, searching every day for some sparse light at the end of a collapsing tunnel. He doesn’t remember why, even with no hope left, I’m still here, still waiting for a miracle even after so long.   
  
He doesn’t remember that he loved me once and that I’ve never been able to let him go. When things got darker, back when James and Lily were still alive, when Sirius began to drift away, I thought that what I’d feared was coming true, that he’d stopped loving me. Perhaps he did. But now I’ll never know. I’ll never know what he felt for me that night he was Kissed, aptly the first time I’d seen him since I realised that I was and always had been hopelessly in love with him.  
  
I have never spoken to him about our past, not in detail. Dumbledore, who is usually right, insisted that in such a fragile state just telling Sirius about his life would send him over the edge. Any huge shock could wipe it all away, perhaps permanently. If he was ever going to remember any of it, it would have to be by himself.  
  
Nothing seemed to stir any recognition from him. I had always expected that he would remember me eventually. We had been together since that night James proposed and he loved me fiercely I think, until that terrible few months before Lily and James died. Before that we'd been friends for seven whole years; we'd grown up together and even those happy days have been extinguished within him.  
  
I guess that I hate the fact that he can forget me so wholly when he is all I can think about. He is still the reason I get up in the morning. He is still the person I would die for. He is still Sirius Black to me, even though realistically I know that there is none of his personality left, nothing unique. Just a body that has his genes and his faded eyes.  
  
“Are you alright, Remus?”  
  
His voice is softer now; he is softer now without his stubbornness, ferocity and wild joy. His face is harder though, thinner, and the angles his body makes are sharper. He is constantly off-balance with the world, disconnected but still attached, and it shows through the taut lines of his body, the thin shape of his mouth.  
  
I try to smile reassuringly, but I know it looks weak, “I’m fine, Padfoot…”  
  
I regret it the moment I say it because now Sirius is worrying again, something in his head telling him he should remember this. He’s frowning slightly, eyes focused on me as if staring at my scarred face long enough will just fix the problem, although he’s tried it before to little success. His lips are pursed slightly making him look sad and troubled.  
  
“It’s alright, Sirius,” I murmur, looking out the window just to avoid the eyes of this vulnerable impostor, “You don’t need to remember. Try not to think about it…”  
  
Silence drags on after that though and I wonder if Sirius is still trying to remember, despite me telling him not to before I realise that that is exactly what Sirius would’ve done obstinately before the Kiss. Nowadays, he does pretty much what I tell him to, almost infuriatingly compliant. I’ve tried to get a rise out of him a few times, but there is nothing except vacant eyes and silent acceptance of all I’ve said.  
  
I glance at him and I’m surprised to see he is staring even harder than before, frown deepening the furrows in his forehead, jaw gritted. He looks angry, but I know better than to think he still feels anger. I blink and fleeting hope flaps uselessly in my ribcage like a fish dying out of water, slapping its body against the solid ground in some futile effort to survive.   
  
Sirius rises from the chair achingly slow, standing before me, eyes searching my face for something that is obviously close but still out of his reach. My heart begins to beat slightly faster as I whisper, uncertain whether if I speak I will make or break whatever momentary connection we have, “Sirius…?”  
  
Sirius hushes me hurriedly, stepping closer slightly as he breathes, “There’s something. I know it, I can feel it…” There’s emotion in his voice, slight desperation, and I can see a glimpse of something long amputated from those silver eyes. I remain silent as the broken man had bidden me, standing perfectly still, wondering if the epiphany will actually come this time.  
  
It feels like hours pass and I notice vaguely that the rain has gotten heavier, but everything has become hazy, has floated into a peripheral dimension. All there is is Sirius, fighting to discover himself, and hope, becoming more and more desperate for some sign that it hasn’t be misplaced.  
  
I feel his hands rest over my elbows lightly, but I think he’s lost what he found however briefly. His eyes fall from my face and he sighs. I open my mouth to speak, to murmur the same comforting words which always gnaw at my endurance, but I can’t do it. Today I can’t bear to say ‘never mind’ or ‘it’ll come to you soon’. I’m tired of lying to myself, to him. Eight years of ‘never mind’s and ‘better luck next time’s have destroyed me, eroded away my will to continue.  
  
‘But he needs it…’ I remind myself bitterly, ‘He needs hope.’  
  
I step back and try to stop shivering, but the chill of the rain outside seeps through my threadbare robes. I can’t look at him as I squeeze out, “Never mind, Sirius…” I turn quickly and stride towards the doorway.  
  
“Remus. Wait,” he mumbles, lacking any conviction or strength. I stumble into the kitchen in order to make breakfast but I hear him following, “Wait. Don’t… Just…” Suddenly his voice cuts off like he’s been struck mid-syllable with a silencing charm and then he breathes something in a voice which sounds parched and stunned, “M-Moony…”  
  
I spin around so quickly I almost lose my balance. I feel all the blood rush from my face and I know I’m shaking. I must look like I’ve seen a Grim, but I must be hearing things, he can’t have just said that name…  
  
“Wha… W-What did you say…?”  
  
Sirius’ voice quivers as he mumbles with more certainty, “I… I used to call you that…”  
  
I squeeze my eyes shut and clutch behind me blindly, trying to find something for stability. The work surface is cold and solid beneath my fingers and errant toast crumbs get ingrained into my finger pads as I press them down against it.  
  
“I’m sorry, Remus. I can’t… I can’t remember any more.”  
  
I release a long breath, trying to quell the dizzying nauseous feeling inflating within me. I open my eyes slowly, watching him between eye-lash obscured slits before focusing on him in greater details. He’s wandering back to his chair, shoulders bent, far too weighed down by the world to be the same Sirius Black who’d dragged me from the dormitory, full of boyish excitement and that smile which had convinced me we were invincible…  
  
He sits down in that old armchair and goes back to staring out the window; I know better than to disturb him again today.  
  
~~~ * ~~~  
  
I notice the knife I’d charmed to chop the vegetables has finished and I flick my wand at them, causing them to fly into the broth already simmering on the stove with perhaps a little more carelessness than usual, a couple of rings of carrot and leek over-shooting the mark and a cube of potato falling onto the floor. I’m distracted as usual.  
  
I haven’t eaten today and now the darkness of approaching December is falling rapidly outside. The sky had been filled with muffled light all day and I’d spent most of it alone in my tiny cluttered study, finishing some spell translations from Ancient Runes for Dumbledore. I’d hardly noticed the time until I realised I was squinting at my writing in the gloom; I try to forget that I’m getting older and blame the poor light.  
  
It was only once I left my office that I passed the library again. I peered inside. He was out of his chair and stood in the middle of the library, muttering to himself. I’ve considered calling Dumbledore round to have a look at him, check if he’s alright. Sirius always says he’s fine, but he always looks so lost. I guess I worry too much.   
  
I think that there must be some other place his mind drifts off to. Either he sits in that chair and his eyes glaze over or he wanders around, always searching for something, but he never finds it. I wonder what he’s looking for, whether it’s always the same thing or if he’s just seeking a discovery of anything.  
  
He’s trying too hard today; he gets almost frantic for answers when he remembers something important. I shouldn’t have reacted so badly when he called me ‘Moony’ earlier. It’s my fault he’s going to work himself up into a state. I know he will; he always does.  
  
The day he first remembered that we’d known each other since we were boys, he ran away. I think in some way he was ashamed that he’d only just remembered, that he’d never realised before that I was anything more to him than a carer. It was cold outside, the hillsides covered in snow that had frozen over. I immediately called Harry round and, after an hour of unsuccessful searching, a few other ex-Order members joined us. It wasn’t until the early hours of the next morning that Severus found him. He’d walked miles and collapsed half-way up a mountain; his bare feet were frostbitten and his pyjama-clad body hypothermic.  
  
He spent the rest of the day in bed and when he finally woke up, he cried and smashed anything in reach, including my nose, which he apologised for profusely afterwards. The frustration must've been unbearable. That was the worst episode; thankfully he’s never done anything as dangerous as that since, but he’s still not himself whenever he remembers something, the old question no doubt coming back to haunt him: 'What else have I forgotten?'  
  
I can’t hear his muttering from the library anymore; I try not to worry. He’d probably be annoyed with me if I check on him again, well as annoyed as he can get these days. But I notice the broth is almost ready and Sirius probably hasn’t eaten all day either so he’s bound to be hungry.  
  
I open the kitchen door to call Sirius when I stop still. That’s when I hear a sound from above, filtering quietly through the open doorway. I frown as I recognise the tinny thrum of brass instruments and look up towards the ceiling, hardly believing me ears, “Glenn Miller?”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading part 2; the story continues in the final three parts, which will be posted soon.
> 
> Feedback would, as always, be greatly appreciated, stroked, cuddled and taken for long walks.


	3. Incentive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius tries to remember everything, before and after...

Part 3: Incentive

  _~ Eight years before ~_

 Professor McGonagall sits with me. I can’t look at her. Her wand is aimed at me, unwavering, and I want to tell her everything. But she wouldn’t believe me anyway. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to put her in such a position. If she ever realised I’d told her the truth, she’d feel guilt for ignoring it.

 I shift slightly, my legs ache with pins and needles; it seems the luxury of a year on the run has made my limbs forget cold stone floor. I remember my cell at Azkaban and I glance at the window, the only improvement this cell has on that one. The first hint of a red dawn splashes onto the cold grey stone slabs which I sit on and stains my hands bloody as I stare at them. Caught red-handed for a murder I never committed. I want to laugh; I would’ve laughed in Azkaban at the irony, but not now.

 I can’t bring myself to feel humour. Harry knows the truth and before that would’ve been enough for me to take the opportunity of death willingly, finally able to forget all the pain, finally able to see my best friend again. But not now. Now I’ve found another reason to live... the only real incentive I have now.

 Unfortunately, the situation is out of my control and my desperation to live is futile.

 I glance at my old Professor, watching me from behind her glasses. There was a time when I used to act up in her lessons and she used to glare at me, hiding a smile as she gave me detention. Now she just stares, not even truly focused on me. I wonder if she is remembering that time, that time that I only remembered at the sight of her familiar stern face.

 A need rises up in me and I want to ask her about Harry. I wonder what he’s like, whether he’s as good at Transfiguration as me and James were or if he’s picked up Lily’s talent for Potions and Charms. I want to ask her a million questions, I want to know my godson...

 I open my mouth and then think better of it. Perhaps it’s better if I don’t think of more reasons to fight the inevitable. I sigh and then shiver slightly; it’s unnaturally cold, which can only mean my execution party approaches.

 I wrap my arms around my knees, pulling them up to my chest. I want to cry, but I won’t let myself. For all the thousand reasons I have, I still will not cry. No matter what James and Lily are dead, Peter has gotten away, Harry will lose me before I’ve even gotten to know him…

 I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out the sound of nearing footsteps and conversation, the chill that is growing with the presence of the creatures approaching. I try to think of only _him_ ; not of all the things I never got to tell him again, not of all the years I spent without him. I remember him with as much clarity as I can, how he used to be...

 I hear a voice, “The Minister is coming now…”

 I don’t know why she tells me this; I can hear the Minister’s voice muffled by a couple of doors, but getting louder and louder like the rumble of execution drums.

 I don’t look at her and try to remember his face clearly, remember the look on his face when I’d seen him at the Shack. He looks so much older than I remember, but I guess losing everyone you’ve ever cared about in one day does that to you. It did to me...

 I try to remember the first time he had told me he loved me, that night James and Lily died. It stings to hear my anger, my fear that he had betrayed us all, to hear his bewildered and frightened voice again, but it gives me comfort to know that at least he loved me once.

 I’m shivering violently now and I feel a hand on my shoulder, squeezing briefly. Her voice breaks slightly as she whispers, “Don’t be afraid…”

 Maybe she knows that things aren’t as they seem; I think instinctively she knows that something is not right about this or at least that no one deserves such a fate, not even the man who betrayed James and his young family and then blew up Peter and a dozen muggles. Even I wouldn’t wish this fate on the man she thinks I am…

 I shake my head feeling like Padfoot with water clogging his ears. I can’t think of that now; I have to remember him. I have to remember everything before it’s all gone.

 But I can’t concentrate on him, on the good things, filled with numbing cold. I can see smoke and shadows swirling around me, around McGonagall although she can’t see them. After so many years in Azkaban, I know those clouds which billow from the crack beneath the door and into my cell. They stretch out towards me, tendrils sinking into my skin and I want to draw them out again, but I’m breathing it in and I can feel them piercing through my skull, violating my mind...

 Suddenly all I can see is Wormtail shrieking my guilt to a street full of muggles, muggles I see dead, a young girl with her mother… Regulus is sat under the sorting hat as it cries “Slytherin!”... Snape, scrawny and sixteen, is laughing viciously at me as I go to strike him again, ‘You love that creature, don’t you?’ smirking at my pain… I feel like I’m seven again; I can hear my mother’s screeching hatred, spitting and cussing and hissing as I hide in between the shelves full of dead things in the basement…

 And I know I choke out a wrenched cry as my eyes fly open and I stare at the wooden door through the vicious fog knowing that there are worst things that lurk in this world than the pickled horrors at Grimmauld Place. And they’re outside the door.

 McGonagall clasps my shoulder slightly tighter and mutters, “It’ll be quick and painless, Sirius.”

 Another wave of icy air fills my lungs and my head... James and Lily, so still and grey, eyes glassy… Harry, tiny Harry, screaming and screaming, choking on the smoke and dust in the wreckage of his cot, blood trickling from his forehead… Remus begging me not to leave him that night, asking if I was having an affair, saying he loved me…

 “No!” I gasp. I have to think of him when things were good; think of his smile, that wonky hesitant smile. He always seemed so worried to smile, as if it gave him away. I remember running with him through the Forbidden Forest when the moon was a wide eye amidst the star-strewn sky, watching his wolf-form howl at the cloud shapes that drifted over his orbiting mistress.

 I remember coming home after particularly long difficult shifts at the Auror Office and finding him sat at the kitchen table (naturally, reading) and two mugs of hot chocolate would be set out with a bottle of fire whiskey nearby. I remembered always finding him awake when I wanted nothing more than for him to be sat there, quiet and peaceful with hot chocolate. I remember stumbling to bed, more often than not half-undressed clinging to him, touching and kissing wherever I could reach because Remus reminded me that there was something worth fighting for, something good in that world crippled by war.

 The door opens and I beg for more time, another minute. I can’t lose it all yet. I remember his skin, I remember mapping the scars, I remember him every summer at Hogwarts reading in the shade of a tree, I remember the funny shade of brown his hair had been before it got so grey, like milky coffee. But that’s still not enough and I don’t have time and I feel panic rising in my chest.

 “He lights candles with muggle matches, he doesn’t like sweet-corn, he only goes for walks when it’s about to rain…” I know I’m babbling, but I have to tell someone. McGonagall is looking at me shocked, frowning through the dark shard of smoke between us. She needs to remember these things; these memories I have because no one else will… “Whenever he listens to ‘In the Mood’, his eyes light up. He only drinks lemonade in the winter. He knows ‘Macbeth’ almost back to front, he was reading it when I met him on the train…”

 “Sirius?”

 “No wait. Wait,” I gasp out desperately, “He needs to know. He needs to know I remember… He’s had the same green scarf since he was nine. At Christmas, he insists on a real tree even if he’s the one who has to clear up the pine needles afterwards… He always sleeps on his front with his arms folded under the pillow when he’s eaten too much. He can speak about three phrases in Russian, one of which is a joke about a grindylow, a veela and a vat of vodka which I’m not even sure was funny in its native language…”

 “Mr Black, you are charged with the murders of James and Lily Marie Potter, Peter Pettigrew and twelve muggles, the illegal escape from your incarceration at Azkaban Prison, the attempted murder of Harry James Potter…”

 I ignore him, ignore the swirling tentacles of the mist, and continue to whisper frantically to the woman beside me whose expression of horror deepens with every word, “Every morning, he left me the crossword in the Prophet, even though a lot of the time I just wrote rude words in the spaces because I didn’t know the answers and he used to get angry with me… Tell him; tell him I remember… He always kissed me goodbye before I went to work… Always...”

 “… and are hereby sentenced to the Dementor’s Kiss.”

 Fudge looks down at me coldly and nods to the creatures that finally enter the room. Through the screaming in my head, through the icy agony in my veins, I keep talking, voice straining against my frozen vocal chords, “He said he loved me once, just once... I never forgot, you must tell him I didn’t forget… We did the washing up together every night. He peels bananas from the bottom, not from the stalk. He used to cut my hair for me because it looked jagged whenever I did it. There’s a birthmark behind the shell of his right ear. He…”

 My voice packs in and I lose my ex-professor to the darkness around me that desecrates my head. I feel another hand on my shoulder; hardly a hand at all, claw-like and frozen, so cold it seemed to burn through my robes…

 It’s his voice; like the moon blasting through the mist, clear and sharp, “NO! PLEASE! STOP THEM! HE’S INNOCENT! STOP!!”

 “Mr Lupin! Contain yourself!”

 The Dementor hates the sound; I feel it vibrating with discomfort even as it leans towards me, casting an impenetrable shadow across my face. I can’t look at it and instead my eyes flick past it to the door and he’s there.

 His face is white, body bruised and bleeding from some nasty looking wounds. The full moon has drained him but it’s still taking three of the Minister’s body guards to restrain him. He struggling against their grasp and I wonder if he’s going to punch the Minister of Magic as he snarled with frantic force, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! MINISTER, STOP THEM! CALL THEM OFF! HE DIDN’T DO IT!”          

The shadow passes between us and the last thing I see is his blue eyes, wild and terrified as he screams at the Minister, still more animal that human, “STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP THEM! IT WAS PETTIGREW; IT WAS A SET-UP!”

 And then everything is being drawn into a void and I think I’m screaming, but I can’t hear anything except suction. I’m drowning in pitch black; it breathes over my skin, bubbles like liquid down my throat and expands in my lungs. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe! My body is heavy and cold... so so cold... and I can’t breathe and I know I’m about to die...

 Suddenly the force pulling me is dragged away and I give a shrill gasp before choking and spluttering on the air. The icy cold evaporates, but it’s already dug itself under my skin, radiating from my bones. Hands, human hands, are pulling me across stone floor by my clothes. I hear shouting, men shouting at one another, at least four voices, panic, anger, a woman speaking shakily, horrified. The shouting calms and I hear footsteps run towards me. The woman is crying, whispering prayers. Something’s wrong; someone grabs me to them. The warmth is indescribable, seeping into me and taking away the ache of the cold. I can hear a hoarse voice, close to my ear, sobbing my name…

 But I can’t remember who the voice belongs to.

 ~~~ * ~~~

_~Eight Years Later~_

 It’s like an itch. I can feel it growing in my mind, begging me to scratch, but suddenly it’s like I have no hands and all I can do is try and tell my brain to stop feeling it. But the nagging feeling never goes away. And I never can remember it, whatever the prickly memory was.

 I’m not surprised that he’s left me alone. I probably shocked him, blurting out something like that when I haven’t remembered anything in a long time. I’ve written it down in my book so I won’t forget it again straight away, but it’s seems to have lodged itself in well enough anyway.

 I glance down at the pages. They’re his pages. Every single thing I remember about him, everything he tells me goes in here. It’s the least I can do for him. He’s been so kind to me, so patient. I worked out the other day that he’s been here caring for me for close to eight years. I don’t understand why he doesn’t leave. Surely he should be concentrating on living his life instead of looking after someone with the mental capacity of a dung bomb.

 I doubt dung bombs worry about such things though and, as far as I know, they can’t talk so perhaps I’m better company than that.

 I hope he doesn’t leave. He’s the only connection I have to reality, the only thing that keeps me trying. He and Harry anyway. They deserve me to remember them; so I’ll keep trying until I do… or until I lose my mind.

 I look at the pages, but I committed them to memory long ago. There’s not really a lot, but I’ve been reading over it every day for almost eight years, just in case.

  _His name is Remus. He has scars on his face, slashed across in claw shapes. His hair is mostly grey (I can’t remember clearly what colour it used to be.)_

_Remus is my best friend. I’ve known him for thirty-two years. We have been friends since we were eleven. We went to Hogwarts together._

_He lives in the Scottish Highlands. It rains a lot here. Outside the cottage window, there are mountains and a brook at the bottom of the garden._

_He likes tea and books. His favourite food is chocolate. He has lots of big band records, but doesn’t listen to them. I’ve never found his gramophone._

_He is a werewolf. He turns into a werewolf on full-moon nights. He is a werewolf for approximately 1/91, just four whole days, of the year (I worked that out for myself). He is not dangerous. I can’t understand why people think he is (this was why I worked out exactly how much time he is a werewolf). He can’t get a job because no one likes him. This is also because he is a werewolf. He doesn’t want a job anyway because he’s looking after me. He’s poor and his robes are always worn and frayed._

_His smile is wonky (something tells me it has never been as wonky as it is now) and he is always polite. He doesn’t cry, even that time when I saw Harry dead in a dream, but he had different eyes; when I told him, he just went silent and did not speak the rest of the day._

_He gives me lots of things that must’ve been mine because they don’t seem like they belong to him. I can never remember what they are or if they are truly mine. He always leaves me the crosswords in the Daily Prophet, but I don’t remember any of the things it asks me so I never do them. He hates the fact I don’t remember him; I can see it in his eyes._

None of it seems important. It’s just a skin-deep list. I realise I don’t know anything other than what he’s told me, which is not much at all. There’s nothing truly personal in there, except...

_I used to call him ‘Moony’…_

 I blink at the page. Something about his expression this morning when he called me that name, ‘Padfoot’, triggered something in my head. It was there, itching, and I tried to remember it. I stared at his face and something was flickering in my head. It was his face, but in the dark, close to mine. I think we must’ve been lying down somewhere, everything was horizontal. In my memory, he was younger. His hair wasn’t so thin and grey, but it was too dark to know what colour it was. He was smiling, wonkily, but looked happy. I think he was talking to me, his lips were moving. Then that word entered my head ‘Moony’. I said it in the memory I think, amongst other things I couldn’t hear; I remember him laughing.

 I’ve never seen him laugh before. Not really. He looks cheerful sometimes, when Harry comes, but he doesn’t laugh. I think of the memory again, trying to remember exactly what his face looked like. It’s hard because it’s already fading away. He looks so much more worn, so much more tired and old now; I think being a werewolf is getting more difficult for him and I don’t think having me around helps much.

 Maybe I should leave. He’d be upset, I know, but he isn’t happy now either. Maybe he’d be less sad if I left, but I wouldn’t know where to go. Remus said once that I’m rich. Maybe I could get my money and then I could live on my own. I could leave some for him so he can get some new robes and get the cottage fixed up properly. I don’t know where I would get my money from though. If I asked him, he’d be suspicious. I probably shouldn’t ask him anything tonight, let alone that; he was upset when I called him ‘Moony’.

 I can’t leave now anyway; it’s getting dark and the rain will probably return with a vengeance the second I step out the door. Besides, Harry’s coming tomorrow. Harry comes to see me on Sundays. I’m his godfather. I could leave him some money too, if I can remember where it is. He doesn’t need it like Remus does though. He’s got a good job… What was it again?

 I’m not in the mood for rifling through my book. I push it back into the pocket in my robes. Maybe I should go and see if Remus is OK. Probably not a good idea. I did shock him earlier. I don’t think anyone calls him ‘Moony’ except me. Maybe someone else did once. I think Harry did, but I don’t remember if it was definitely him. The boy had glasses, I remember.

 I get out of the chair and turn away from the gloom outside. Remus told me he had a box of photo albums once; if I look at them it might help. Where did he say they were? At the time, I didn’t want to look. I can’t remember why, considering it could be so useful. I remember some man with a white beard who didn’t think it was a good idea. Or was that the thing about me learning about dogs? One or the other; maybe both. Remus argued with him about it for a long time. They don’t argue when he visits anymore but it’s quite rarely so maybe they do and I just can’t remember. 

 I guess mad people have got it lucky in some ways. If you’re truly mad, you don’t know you are. So I can’t be mad because I know that I have problems with my memory, I know I can’t remember anything before these last few years of my life. I almost wish I was mad…

 Where are those albums? Where would Remus put them? I don’t think I should ask him. He’s probably still upset. I don’t want to make him feel worse; it’s not fair that he has to put up with me when all I ever seem to do is make him miserable.

 “Moony always had photo albums when we were young.” I say to myself suddenly although I’m not quite sure where that memory surfaced from, “In an old trunk… I’ve seen that trunk.”

 I could remember it vaguely. It was wooden and had a broken handle on one side. The handles were cold. I think both were made of metal, but painted black. I’ve seen it somewhere. I can’t remember where.

 “Are you alright, Sirius?”

 Remus is peering in the doorway. He’s still upset; his smile’s too forced. I nod quietly, “I’m fine.”

 “You looked a bit confused, that was all.”

 I almost want to say that I always look confused, but it wouldn’t sound as funny as it does in my head. I think I used to be funny. I remember laughing a lot anyway.

 When I don’t reply, he shoots me an anxious glance and then sighs in acceptance of my obvious wish to be alone, “Alright, Sirius. You didn’t have any breakfast or lunch. I’ll make you something to eat, probably vegetable soup.”

 “Thank you, Remus.”

 “You’re welcome.”

 And we’re back to that same strained routine of pleasantries. There’s nothing else to really say to one another. I hate not knowing things about him. I hate his fake smile. I hate looking at him and knowing that I’ve forgotten something very very important; something I can still feel twist in my stomach when I look at him, but I can’t translate it. There’s something there, always out of my reach. I hate telling myself he’s important to me and not being able to explain why.

 Now if only I could remember where I’d seen those photo albums.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find out what happens next in Part 4 & 5!
> 
> Comments, good or bad, are welcome.


	4. Instinct

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius knows, somewhere in this house, there must be something that will remind him who Remus really is.

Part 4: Instinct

I’ve never been up here before; the door is always locked.

I know that that shouldn’t matter, that I could easily get through that lock. Dim memories seeming to be coming by the bundle today, I remember that I need a wand. Remus gave it to me; I keep it in its holster in my sleeve although I’ve never used it. I never could see the point, but now I withdraw it and point it shakily at the lock…  
  
I stare at it, but nothing happens. I try concentrating hard. ‘I want the door to unlock and open. I want the door to unlock and open.’  
  
The wand is warm beneath my fingertips, but nothing happens. I close my eyes tightly shut, grit my teeth. ‘The door must unlock. I need the door to unlock. Unlock!’  
  
I don’t remember what I’m supposed to say. I open my eyes and stare at the door, frustrated with my ineptness. I wave the wand vaguely, ‘Just go away!’  
  
And I stumble back in surprise and horror as the entire door evaporates. I shakily slip the wand back into my left sleeve and reach out my right hand. It quivers as I try to press against a surface which should be there; my fingers glide through the air and into the gloomy attic.  
  
I sigh and feel myself smile slightly, satisfied. I step through the empty doorway quickly as if expecting it to suddenly reappear with me half-way through it.  
  
My eyes scan around in the shady space, my head bent to stop me banging it against the wooden beams. They fall on the trunk, the one I had remembered earlier, and I move closer…  
  
Sat atop it is another familiar object. Remus’ gramophone is balanced on the lid, covered in dust, a record still on the turntable. I lift it off, careful not to drop it; it’s heavy and makes a loud thunk as I set it down on the floorboards. I choke at the cloud of dirt which it displaces from the floor and waft it away from my face. When the cloud dissipates, I lift up the record, blowing it and swiping over it with my robe sleeve before placing it back.   
  
My fingers are trembling as I lower the needle. There seems something holy in the action because I can’t remember what this music sounds like, but I remember that Remus used to love it.  
  
Perhaps that’s why I feel so amazed as I gently tap it with my wand and it crackles into life. This is a part of him I still haven’t rediscovered. As the familiar tune begins, I recognise something that is intrinsically Remus, something in the cheery ring of the trumpets that sings of the man who used to smile whenever he listened to it. He never listens to it anymore so that smile was lost, but now I hear it in the melody. I can see him humming along, reading and vaguely conducting with one foot as he sat with his feet up on a comfy sofa.  
  
And I turn back to the trunk, just as I remember it. The handles are cold as I brush over them, lifting the solid wooden lid. I reach inside and lift out as many of the leather-bound albums as I can, but it still seems almost filled to the brim…  
  
I stare at the one on top, gold letters printed in the dark brown leather of the spine. _‘Hogwarts’._ Our school photos.  
  
Tentatively, I flip open the cover. The first page is blank but has the words _‘First Year’_ scrawled in the middle. I know that writing immediately as Remus’ neat legible script.  
  
On the next page, a boy with scruffy hair stares back at me, glasses askew, arm wrapped around another boy’s neck, both laughing hard. The boy with his head in a headlock has chin-length black hair and… Merlin, the eyes…  
  
It takes me a couple of seconds to realise that I am looking at a photo of myself from over thirty years ago. Something about the image suddenly brings tears to my eyes. I look so young and I’m laughing. It’s seems strange to think of a time when I was boy that I don’t remember. I want to remember what had been so funny, but I can’t.  
  
I notice Remus’ writing beneath the image: _‘September 2nd: J + S after first prank.’_  
  
J? I stare at the other boy again. He’s the spitting image of Harry only younger, but it can’t be him; he’d have to be the same age as me and Moony now…  
  
The spectacled boy’s eyes aren’t green; they’re browner, perhaps hazel. This isn’t Harry…  
  
I look at the next one: that boy is there again. He’s half-standing, leaning forwards over his desk, hand stretched out towards a girl. The picture is moving as he drops a spider onto her flaming red hair and she almost immediately jumps in shock and then turns to glare at him, eyes aflame with annoyance.  
  
I read the subtitle beneath the photo: _‘September 6th: J’s first attempt to get L to notice him.’_  
  
 _’September 21st: Moaning Myrtle flirting with P’_  
  
A female ghost, also dressed in Hogwarts uniform, was running a hand over (and slightly through) a short dumpy boy’s blonde hair. His chubby cheeks were bright red with embarrassment. Something hot and angry filled my mouth as I looked at him. My tongue felt very dry; I didn’t like the look of the boy even though in the image my younger self was clapping him on the shoulder, grinning widely and wiggling his eyebrows…  
  
 _‘October 11th: Me on a broom (for the first and only time!)’_  
  
Immediately, the fury making the air in my lungs thick and stuffy dissolved as I stared at the familiar scrawny boy. I choked on a laugh as I watched him clutching onto the handle of a broomstick which was trying its very best to throw him off. His blue eyes were wide with fear, scarred face very white as he was grabbed by the younger me, far more at ease on his broom, and the bucking broom stilled.   
  
The image replayed itself again and I stretched out a finger, smiling in awe. This was Remus. Remus and me. Back when we’d been children. His hair used to be mousey brown, kind of like…  
  
“Milky coffee,” I breathe staring at him for a few more seconds before shaking my head and hurriedly turning the page.  
  
Greedily, I flicked the pages hypnotised by the photos, watching as the four boys grew older in wonder. My life was flashing before my wide eyes. There were teachers and ghosts and other students, students I’d liked, students I hadn’t (referred to collectively as ‘Slytherins’). There were flashes of gold and red, banners with roaring lions saying ‘Go Gryffindor’. Me and the boy who looked like Harry in red and gold uniforms racing around on brooms… Quidditch… I’d played Quidditch… There was a giant squid and a scarlet steam train and a huge vicious tree which whipped its branches menacingly. There was a boy with a hook-nosed and greasy hair who always seemed to be on the receiving end of some prank or another (when I looked at him, I felt a similar feeling of dislike as I had to the chubby boy although it was far less vicious) and there was that girl. The one with red hair. She was there more than any of the other girls. She always looked angry; in some she was shouting at ‘J’, while he ruffled his hair or grinned sheepishly or looked vaguely mortified.  
  
Suddenly, I was watching in shock as a stag got its antlers tangled in the bed curtains of someone’s bed in the dormitory and then suddenly turned into ‘J’.  
  
This was fifth year: there was a picture of Remus, crying and laughing as a big black dog balanced its front paws on his knees where he sat on the edge of his own bed and barked at him, wagging its tail. The dog turned back into a handsome boy who had my grey eyes and my black hair… I had been able to change myself into a dog.  
  
That was what the man with the white beard (my old head teacher, I know now) had been talking about that time. Remus had wanted to tell me about the dog and he’d said he shouldn’t.  
  
 _“I’m fine, Padfoot…”_ That was what Remus had said earlier. _“Padfoot…”_ He called me that because I was a dog, because I could become a dog. Padfoot was the dog’s name…  
  
There were a number of pictures of me as a dog and ‘J’ as a stag and a rat, which was ‘P’, the chubby boy seeming to transform far less smoothly than ‘J’ and me.  
  
I shut the book and reached for another, thinner one. It was a different colour to the previous photo album and could only fit one photo on each page. It was white and gold and had no title.  
  
I was staring at myself, wicked grin on my handsome face. I must’ve been early twenties, matured features slightly more recognisable as my own. I was dressed in a muggle suit and was holding an alarm clock up to the lens, putting the hour hand forward three hours.  
  
 _‘7 am on the Big Day. Sirius gives the Groom a wake-up call.’_  
  
I turned to the next one. ‘J’ was hurriedly ramming a pair of trousers on, glasses absent from his face, shirt buttoned up wrong. Near him, Remus was stood, also dressed in a suit, hand clapped to his mouth as he sniggered. Suddenly James stopped, looked up at the person holding the camera, face changing from panic to rage as he lunged for him.  
  
This photo was entitled: _‘7:05 am: James regrets his choice of Best man.’_  
  
“James…” I gasped. His name was James! James was… James was…  
  
I found I couldn’t breathe momentarily. James was the one I’d seen dead in that dream, not Harry. James… James had been Harry’s father… James had been my best friend… I’d been best man at his wedding…  
  
All I could see was flashes of the boy, could hear him saying things to me, laughing with me, expressions of joy and wistfulness, anger and embarrassment, fear and determination, courage… blank dead hazel eyes…  
  
I drew in a deep hissing breath as if I'd just stubbed my toe or cut my finger. I remembered James. He’d died… I’d loved him like a brother… I’d killed him! No, no that couldn’t be right! I couldn’t have killed my best friend… All I could see was his eyes, unfocussed, staring into oblivion, glasses cracked on the floor.  
  
I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to forget that image so newly retrieved; I tried to remember killing him, tried to remember how I’d done it. All I could see was him gripping the chubby boy’s hand. I knew I was the reason he’d died and I felt grief and anger well within me at that indescribable epiphany. And yet, through my pain, I felt that absorbing hate again for the man with watery pale eyes and a twitchy pointed nose.  
  
He was on the next page, handing James a flask of something that was probably liquor as they stood outside the church. James looked nervous, gladly taking a swig from the canteen before Remus snatched it from his hand with a comforting smile and said something obviously reprimanding, but consoling all the same.  
  
Then there was a picture of a woman, flaming red hair flickering against the white of her dress. I was kissing her on the cheek fondly as she slapped me off nervously, biting her lip.  
  
It was that girl… the one James had dropped a spider on at the beginning of First Year. The one with bright green eyes, Harry’s eyes… She waved at the camera noticing it there, smiling. She was beautiful, nose spattered with caramel coloured freckles, and I felt something tighten in my chest. I couldn’t remember her fully, but I knew that she was dead too. That it had been my fault. What was her name…?  
  
I glanced at the note beneath the photo: _‘James finally gets his way with Lily.’_  
  
Lily… Lily… I used to call her something else at school, before we were friends, before she married James. I can’t remember…  
  
There were pictures of the ceremony; James looked utterly flabbergasted as Lily walked down the aisle, the two holding hands, exchanging rings. I smiled fondly at the photo of my best friend dipping Lily to kiss her as the ceremony ended like some clichéd muggle film.  
  
Then there were pictures of the reception. A huge white marquee on a green lawn at the back of a large mansion house. James and Lily dancing, laughing, kissing on the dance floor. Lily thrown over a huge man’s shoulder as she shrieked, the man’s beady eyes twinkling behind his wild black mane. A bald black man with a gold hoop earring laughing as he ruffled James’ hair, the other man looking relieved beyond comprehension and ridiculously happy. Peter treading on the toes of a woman he was dancing with, both looking incredibly eager for the song to hurry up and finish. A sour-faced woman stood next to her bulky husband; both exchanging cold mutters until Lily approached smiling happily, giving the blonde woman and peck on the cheek. Two red-headed boys playing with a small girl whose plaited hair seemed to change colour in every shot.  
  
Their teachers, fellow students, friends, families… It seemed that everyone who knew them had turned up (except the Slytherins). They had both been well loved.  
  
I turned the page still grinning and stopped dead…  
  
Remus was stood in the garden, night sky speckled with stars, flower bushes filled with soft twinkling lights. Another slightly taller man faced him, face hidden from view although the hair was unmistakably my own. I watched as the werewolf laughed silently and tugging my hand, blue eyes glinting with mischief as he pulled me towards the edge of the frame. Before we reached it though, I leant in towards him and…  
  
I dropped the photo album and scrambled backwards away from it, elbowing the gramophone, switching the volume up a notch or two. I finally found my feet and pressed my back up against the slanted wooden beam of the roof. There were cobwebs in my hair and billowing clouds of dust erupted in my wake as I stood there, my breathing seeming to drown out the music echoing in the small space.  
  
I heard hurried footsteps running up the stairs, his hoarse voice calling out anxiously, “Sirius…? Are you up here?”  
  
I jerked my head towards the sound as if I'd been caught doing something illegal and stared at the doorway as he appeared. At the sight of him, something exploded within me like a firework, sparks of light and colour whizzing around in my head, in front of my eyes… but there was no sound, no explosion. Until I heard his voice, like the moon blasting through the mist, clear and sharp...  
  
 _“NO! PLEASE! STOP THEM! HE’S INNOCENT! STOP!!”  
  
“Mr Lupin! Contain yourself!”  
  
His face is white, body bruised and bleeding from some nasty looking wounds. The full moon has drained him but it’s still taking three of the Minister’s body guards to restrain him. He struggling against their grasp and I wonder if he’s going to punch the Minister of Magic as he snarls with frantic force, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! MINISTER, STOP THEM! CALL THEM OFF! HE DIDN’T DO IT!”  
  
The shadow passes between us and the last thing I see is his blue eyes, wild and terrified as he screams at the Minister, still more animal than human, “STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP THEM! IT WAS PETTIGREW; IT WAS A SET-UP!”  
_  
  
*FLASH*  
  
 _Remus is trembling, face very pale and he looks like he’s going to be sick as his blue eyes dart from me to James to Peter and back again. He stares at me...  
  
“I-I need to tell you something. I… I’m… I’m a… I’m not normal…”  
  
“We already know,” James whispers beside me, face solemn as I place a comforting hand on our friend, our friend who is a werewolf.  
  
He blinks, “You see, I....... What?”  
  
_  
*FLASH*  
  
 _I hurriedly shove Lily and baby Harry into the green fire and they disappear. I hear a window smash, a curse flying near my ear, but I have to finish the confundus charm otherwise they could be traced, I have to make sure they’re safe...  
  
Suddenly James shouts, “Sirius!” and I spin, but my heart jolts, my stomach seems to drop nauseatingly and I know it’s too late...  
  
“Expelliamus!”   
  
The death eater who was aiming at me is blasted against the wall and Remus suddenly appears, face flushed from the fight, “Sirius, we have to get out of here. One of them said there’s more on the way...” I can see the pain in his expression as he whispers, “God Sirius, someone told them where they were hiding...”  
_  
  
*FLASH*  
  
 _“I could give you a detention for that, you know…”  
  
James and I glance up from our newest prank, one we’d been cooking up over the summer as Remus shuffles into the compartment. I feel a slight lurch, a hitch in my breath at the sight of him. I missed him...  
  
James speaks first, “Curse Dumbledore and McGonagall!”   
  
It’s only this that brings me back to the present and Remus’s words finally sink in, my eyes falling on the glinting red badge pinned to his old bobbly jumper.  
  
I join in, attempting to hide my lapse in concentration with melodrama, “O the shame! O the humiliation!”   
  
“Look what they’ve done to our Remus!” James has jumped up from his seat and is prodding Remus in the chest, “A Prefect?! Amongst the Marauders?!?” Remus smiles, wonkily, shyly, but I can tell he’s thrilled.  
  
Remus turns his grin on me and instead of the usual sense and reason he inspires in me, I find myself acting even more like a idiot, fake swooning, “O the horror!”  
  
James implores with almost as much finesse as I can, “After suffering this tragedy, this betrayal, this renunciation of all our ideals, how are we ever to pull pranks again, Remus?!”  
  
With something like smugness, Remus glances down over our parchment and the annotated diagrams of mayhem. He raises an eyebrow and sighs, “Well not like that. That definitely won’t work. You’ll need a bigger catapult…”  
  
_  
*FLASH*  
 _  
We’re all exhausted; the minute we got the call me and Moony were apparating to St. Mungo’s. Then came the thirteen hour wait, the longest wait of my life. Now Lily is lying smiling weakly at Remus and James passes him the pink splotchy baby, whose face is wrinkled as he gives a choked cry.  
  
Remus blinks down at the baby and I think he’s lost for words. He gulps ever-so-slightly and releases a trembling breath, looking uncomfortable and uncertain holding James’ tiny son. The baby sneezes ever so slightly and the werewolf flinches in surprise and then laughs almost to reassure himself that the baby doesn't hate him, can't sense what he is. Suddenly a smile blooms across his face, wonky and beautiful, and it's love at first sight.  
  
“We named him Harry,” Lily says softly, green eyes studying Remus’ overwhelmed expression as he sniffs slightly, blinking away the liquid growing on the brink of his eyelids.  
  
“Harry…” He whispers breathlessly, eyes never leaving the baby’s face, stroking a finger over the downy black hair, “Harry’s a wonderful name!”  
_  
  
*FLASH*  
  
 _He's still got his back to me as I take another cautious step towards his bed in the dormitory. I can’t take my eyes off the heavy bandaging on his fingers where ripping claws had been two nights ago...  
  
“I didn’t mean for... You know, I... I didn’t mean...”  
  
“Don’t you get it?!” His voice trembles; he’s angry and hurt and betrayed. I want to be sick as he turns, his eyes not full of anger or hurt or betrayal. Just utter shock, “I almost killed him, Sirius!”  
_  
  
*FLASH*  
  
 _The gap of bare mattress between us is the furthest it’s ever been. But I can still feel the tingling in my skin that only he has ever caused. I want to scrape it off, to scour the feeling away because it reminds me of the good things which are then crushed by the bad.  
  
His breathing is soft and steady across from me, finally asleep, and I glance at the alarm clock. I have to go.  
  
Slowly, I shift up and out of the covers and pull on my robes quickly, silently...  
  
“Have I done something wrong?”  
  
His voice makes me jump and I glance at the figure lying in the bed, our bed. His blue eyes are staring at the indent in my pillow. I try to speak past the tight ball of nausea and guilt and anger in my throat, “Go to sleep, Remus…”  
  
“I don’t understand.” His voice is hoarse and it shakes terribly. I look away from him as I pull on a pair of thick socks to keep out the chill. He whispers, voice as worn as mine from all our recent fights, “Tell me what I did. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Padfoot. I’m sorry I don’t know what it is. I-I probably should know, but I…” He finally looks up at me as I pull on my cloak and the note of panic in his voice echoes in the room, “Where are you going?”  
  
“Out.”  
  
“Where? It’s midnight…”  
  
“Go back to sleep,” I repeat coldly. I just want him to shut up, his voice as always weakening my defences. He doesn’t need an Unforgivable to control me, to torture me, to make me feel like part of me has died... I shudder; I have to get away from him, I promised Peter I’d be there soon...  
  
I storm out of the door, filled with so many conflicting emotions I want to scream.  
  
“Sirius, wait! Please! I’m sorry. Is-Is there… Is there someone else?” He’s grabbing onto my arm, tightly and I almost wish there was, that it was me who was in the wrong. I was always the reckless one, the rule-breaker. I'm the Black, not him. It should’ve been me... It should've been me that they took. Not Moony... Not my Moony...   
  
His voice is frightened and it hits me like a blow, “P-Please don’t go! Please…” I shake my arm from his; Merlin, I have to get out. It’s wrong to let him have this much power over me, it’s dangerous...  
  
I reach the door and open it as he blurts out, “Please, I don’t know what I did, but I’ll fix it, I promise. I- I love you…” I freeze and I choke on the air I breathe. He didn’t just say... He couldn’t have... He has never said it. It has to be a trick, a crippling blow. It almost takes me down like a Leg-Locker Jinx and now he’s babbling hurriedly, tearfully, “Please come back to bed… We’ll talk about it; we can sort it out… Don’t leave like this…”  
  
I squeeze out the words, my mouth parched, “I need to go. I promised Peter I’d meet him…”  
  
He intercepts me, tries to meet my gaze, blocking the doorway, “Peter? I don’t understand… Sirius, what’s going on? What’s so important you have to see Peter on Halloween? Is this about James and Lily?!”  
  
I recognise the questions, the same he’s been asking me for weeks and I feel the anger rise again. Not at him, at the murderers who have replaced his friends, at the bastard who he must love more than me.  
  
“SHUT UP!” I’m crying as I shout fiercely, refusing to look at him, at those eyes that would be my undoing, “IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS OR ANY OF YOUR NEW FRIENDS! GET OUT OF MY WAY!”  
  
He staggers back into the corridor with a muffled groan as if I’ve just stabbed him. I brush past and along the corridor, past the doors of our neighbours. I open the door to the staircase leading down to the car park, his hysterical voice following me, “You… You think…? No… No, no, no… No, I’m not… I’m not! SIRIUS! SI-“  
_  
  
*FLASH*  
 _  
We’re sat in the flat, on the floor, surrounded by multi-coloured plastic blocks. Remus is leaning against my chest, between my legs and Harry is wobbling as he stands on the wine red carpet between Remus’.  
  
“No, Harry. Moo-NY! Moo-NY! Not MOO!”   
  
Remus is smiling as the one-year-old staggers forward and lets go of the werewolf’s steadying hands in order to clap his podgy fingers against the scarred cheeks before him.  
  
“MOO’!”  
  
I press my mouth to the ear of the man I love, whispering cheekily, “I like it. Moo has a lot of seduction potential...” Remus snorts and I know it’s a challenge, “Hmmm... Let's see... The carpet is Red, the sofa is Blue...” I dip my head and place a kiss against the corner of his jaw and then down his neck, “Harry’s going to bed... So I can shag Moo...”  
  
On hearing the name, Harry grins with all four of his teeth and says loudly, “MOO!”  
  
I snigger loudly against the nape of his neck unable to help myself as Remus shakes his head, outnumbered, and sighs, “Oh, I give up!”_  
  
  
*FLASH*  
  
 _“May I have this dance, Mrs. Potter?”  
  
Lily turns from me and looks to Remus as he joins us. She grins as without another word the werewolf has whisked her onto the dance floor. I laugh as he spins her and then dips her. Lily is giggling and they’re talking to one another, laughing. I lean against the wall and watch on. They rotate with the brisk beat of the music along with many other couples and suddenly I wish that I was the one dancing with Moony...  
  
His eyes meet mine and they’re filled with such happiness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him ‘giddy’, but tonight he’s pretty close. For once, he doesn’t seem bothered and embarrassed about his scars (even after being introduced to Lily’s ghastly sister and her bull of a husband) and he seems determined to have a wonderful time. For once, I think Remus feels comfortable.  
  
To say I'm amazed by him is an understatement.  
  
I realise I’ve been staring and he winks at me before turning to his beautiful partner and bowing himself out. Lily is immediately whisked away by Professor Dumbledore, still laughing like she will never stop. I watch as Remus stalks over slowly and there’s something feral in his eyes, something that makes me want to smirk.  
  
Seduction has never been his strong point. Remus is too easily flustered, but tonight it seems he's built up the guts to try it. I know I am smirking now as he leans close to me, looking up at me with lidded eyes, and whispers near my ear, “How about you? Lovely bloke like you shouldn’t be lurking at the edge of the dance floor with so many available ladies around; people might get the wrong the impression...”  
  
“Let them,” I breathe, catching the scent of him, the ever-so-slight hint of aftershave and perspiration. His shirt is undone at the top and I can see the curve of his collarbone, even the very edge of a love bite I left there only the night before. My mouth goes a little bit dry. He raises an eyebrow and I just chuckle fondly, “How much have you had to drink, Moony?”  
  
There is no answer and instead Remus surreptitiously grabs my hand, “You going to dance with me or what?”  
  
“Or what, indeed,” I murmur, delighting in the wicked grin that crookedly spreads across the werewolf’s face as he begins tugging me out into the garden, “Oh Moony, respectable gentleman such as yourself... people might get the wrong impression.. . ”  
  
“They’ll think I’m taking you to examine the geraniums?” Remus replies with faux confusion and I can’t help myself, laughing happily I stumble in towards him...  
_  
  
*FLASH*  
  
I must’ve swayed or started to collapse or something because suddenly Remus’ hands grip my elbows and the contact jolts me from my memories. Startled, I look up into his face.  
  
And I feel it again as I look at him. The twist in my stomach which I couldn’t understand. Now it aches in my chest and I realise quite suddenly that I love him. I have loved him since I was fifteen, since before I could even truly realise what love was.  
  
His eyes are filled with that sad lonely look, his face ashen with worry for me. He looks so old and grey now. I feel tears cloud my vision and condense in my head because now I know how young he used to be, how full of happiness and peace he was back then, even during the war when both things were hard to come by. I remember clinging to him like he was gravity, like he was the world. He was my world, everything I hoped for, everything I had ever truly possessed, the only person who had owned every part of me in return...  
  
“Sirius? What’s wrong? Are you alright?” Remus is gripping my arms hard as his eyes trail over me, looking for injuries, “Say something. Sirius? What’s happened?” I’m shaking, shaking hard and I can’t look away from that face, that beautiful face. He looks over at the open trunk and whatever colour is left in his cheeks drains away. And I recognise his expression and I remember I always hated it when he looked like that; he had looked like this the night James and Lily died. He’s shaking too, whispering frantically, brokenly, “No. No, no, please. Please don’t say it’s all gone again. Please no. Sirius?! Sirius, snap out of it! Sirius?! Stay with me...”   
  
Those familiar words trigger something in the back of my mind and, moving on once repressed instinct, I throw myself forwards, bashing our mouths together.  
  
The motion in my legs is jerky, sudden and it hurts as our noses clash, but my hands shoot up and grasp his thinned face tightly. It’s not right, but I can’t let go of him, not now. He’s my gravity; he’s all that holds me here and I know if I let go I’ll float away.  
  
Then I shift, lips still tightly pressed to his as I straighten up. I’m just taller than him and his face lifts up ever so slightly... and we _fit_. His chest slips into place against mine, a key slipping into the lock, and everything rushes forward and out of the confines of my mind. It happens in a split second and suddenly I’m not who I was ten minutes ago, who I was when Remus stepped into the attic.  
  
With some frantic energy, I find myself pressing closer, feeling rather than hearing the sob he makes as I kiss him properly, mouth fitting his perfectly as his hands fist at the folds of my robes around my skinny hips. It’s so familiar, I know this, and yet it’s new, different. Hot liquid trickles over my thumbs, still pressing against his cheekbones with what is probably bruising force.   
  
Everything becomes hazy; we’re stumbling down the stairs, neither of us leading and I’m pulling at his clothes as we pause every few paces, hands touching to find assurance, praying that this is real. Two of my fingers brush skin as his jumper and shirt inch up and I shiver, he shivers. He pulls shakily from the kiss, breath hot and damp against my face as he brushes his trembling lips against my cheeks, the skin beneath my nose, my chin. I want to explore too, to follow the paths of scars on his body that I once knew better than the back of my own hands.   
  
We stagger a bit further and vaguely I know we’ve reached Remus’ bedroom. We’re through the door clumsily and it’s like torture when we pull slightly apart. I’m breathing heavy, exhilarated and amazed, my hands as wobbly as my legs are as I fumble with my robes and his clothes, aching to feel him, really feel him.  
  
I stare at his face and he looks into mine and I know this is what I was searching for, what I’ve been searching for forever. This is _Remus_ , not the quiet grief-stricken man who I have known for eight years. He’s still crying and I want him to stop, tired of seeing the sadness in his eyes. But this is more, this is different.   
  
I swoop in again, addicted to his mouth and then I hear him laugh croakily, voice thick with tears. Is he as amazed as I am? ‘It can’t be possible,’ I think to myself, but he laughs again, shakily, lips still fervently meeting mine again and again.  
  
My calf strikes the bed and we both topple onto it, half-dressed. Remus is above me, trailing his mouth along my neck, nipping at my adam’s apple. I immediately roll us over; I need to learn him again, need to pour myself into every scar. Because that was what I used to do, because that way he’ll know just how much I love him. I can’t put it into words so I use physical contact; I show him what is impossible to voice.  
  
As my mouth meets the familiar puncture like scars ringing his shoulder, he gasps and clutches at me as if worried I'll evaporate, dragging my mouth back to his fiercely. We're so close it feels like we're trying to absorb each other at the points our body connect, that every time I draw in a sharp short breath we merge for a brief moment. I can think of no place I'd rather be than in those gasping moments, those moments when I can inhale Remus through my skin.  
  
All the troubles we have faced melt away; time rushes in a blur of skin and hair and eyes. Memories are exploding fiercely within me and I begin to lose sight of what is happening because it has happened so many times before. I become wilder with every one, frantic with lust and love and memory. I want to slow down, but I feel like an avalanche; I can’t stop, not with his body trembling against mine, our skin touching like metal plates conducting electricity, magnetically pulling us together.  
  
Faintly, I can still hear the chirpy big band music from the gramophone in the attic and I smile...  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion will be posted in Part 5.
> 
> If you are enjoying this fic so far, please leave a comment saying so. If you're not enjoying this fic so far, please leave a comment saying so. If you are ambivalent, you are excused.


	5. Ineffable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry makes his normal Sunday visit. The final chapter.

Part Five :  Ineffable

 Night is shrinking back out of the sky and I flinch, woken by the creak of thunder at the crack of dawn again. I shake off the remnants of troubled sleep, filled with strange memories of icy smoke and fog, remembering the same darkness from my other nightmares... I shift slightly and then frown. After those dreams I always awoke cold, but now I feel so warm and heavy; I can’t move.

 Then my bleary eyes glance at the head nestled on my bare chest, analysing that a naked arm and at least one equally naked leg are tangled among my own limbs. Hazily I remember shadow-covered scars, laboured breathing and eyes, soul-stealing eyes like I hadn't remembered until last night. It’s strange not to remember the exact colour of blue when I’ve seen him every day for eight years; then again we have not met each other’s gaze much in these blind days, not properly. My body still feels weak and sapped of all strength. I smile softly and soon grin, almost smugly, because that sated feeling is pleasantly familiar indeed.

 I consider drifting back off to sleep, feeling thoroughly lethargic, and then I remember waking him up every morning. That was always something I loved doing, whether we were twelve and I was bouncing on his bed or we were twenty-one and I was tickling him back to consciousness with my lips and eager fingertips. I decide that after I’ve woken him up properly, I’m not going to move from his side for the rest of the day and, by force if necessary, his side isn’t going to move from this bed!

 I shift slightly, noticing for the first time the patches of pins and needles here and there. I wonder if Remus always insists on sleeping mostly on top of me instead of his side of the bed. He stirs slightly but doesn’t wake, much to my relief. I smile, finally able to see his face, and I lean forwards. It is high time that I re-assume my alarm clock responsibilities...

 I take a final glance at his sleeping face and pause before my lips reach his bony shoulder and the scarred puncture-marks there. This close I notice the tear stains on his pale cheeks, faint but present. My smile dies and something twists sharply just below my stomach as my eyes trail his features properly. I noticed the grey smudges of exhaustion under his eyes, the lines of worry around his mouth, the grey hairs I’ve caused. I think back on the past eight years, think of Remus loving me but patiently never saying a word... I shiver as the knot clenches again, viciously.

 Then I crawl from the bed slowly, extricating myself with care, pace quickening as I frantically pull on my clothes, my robes, shed across the carpet like shrapnel from an exploded mine. I notice that my hands are shaking far worse than they were when I touched him last night and I clench them into fists to stop the tremors.

 I feel awful, sick and angry; I feel like the worst person in the world.

 I don’t look at my sleeping friend as I stumble from the room...

 ~~~ * ~~~

 “What are you doing?”

 The red-haired woman turns to me with a smile, “Making gingerbread men. Mum sent me a recipe, said you were looking on the skinny side the last time she saw you.”

 I chuckle softly, deciding not to mention that since we’d been living together I’d already gained nearly a stone, and pressed a kiss against her temple, breathing the scent of her in contentedly, “Thank her for me.”

 Ginny glances over her shoulder, blue eyes smiling, brushing flour onto her apron from her hands, before saying quietly, “You off then?”

 “Yeah,” I reply suddenly sombre, glancing at the clock on the wall, “They’ll be expecting me.”

 She nods, grim understanding in her eyes, and then smooths the shoulders of my robes, “Will you be back for dinner?”

“Maybe...” I rest my forehead against my wife’s, needing her strength to motivate me, “I’ll floo call if I’m going to be late.”

“All right then,” Ginny smiles again and gives me a gentle peck.

 I smile, although it is faint. My mood is always fragile on Sundays. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad visiting Sirius every week as I do if I didn’t have to see Remus. Sirius’ amnesia is difficult for me to cope with, of course, but it’s the hollow expression in the werewolf’s eyes which affects me the worst. My ex-professor has spent eight years praying that the only link he has to his past, the only person who truly knows him, will be salvaged and it’s killing him. Whenever I see him he looks ill, worse than even a curse like his can make him. He’s fading away like ink in an old book and now only a recovered Sirius can possibly retrace the missing script.

 At least I don’t truly know what I’m missing like Remus does...

 “Right. I’d better go. Already late.”

My wife kisses me again and murmurs, “Go on then.”

 “See you later. And you too, Bump.” I glance down at the swollen shape of my unborn child under Ginny’s apron and can’t help but grin like an idiot as I pull out my wand.

 As usual, I apparate to a spot at the bottom of the garden under the large willow tree, its long leaves dangling in the swollen stream’s clear water. The water’s usually smooth surface is disrupted by the raindrops plopping loudly into it. I quickly cast an Impervius charm and step out from under the shady shelter, looking at the two-story cottage perched on the hillside, grey stone standing out against the brown ferns and dull green grass covering the mountain.

 I begin trudging up the steady slope, slipping twice and almost falling on the slick layer of wet grass and mud before reaching the kitchen door. Scraping my feet on the worn bristly mat, I knock softly.

 There is no immediate reply and I glance at my watch; I am late and usually, even if early, Remus would be ready with tea and toast and his usual strained smile. I peer around at the rain-flecked window Sirius always sits at, but his chair is unoccupied.

 Worried, not just by the lack of reply, but by the rumblings of the indigo clouds blooming above that promise a heavy enough downpour to break my rather weak Impervius charm, I knock again.

 The door opens quite abruptly and I start in surprise. Before I can reprimand my ex-professor for making me jump and inquire as to what took him so long, the werewolf has turned, leaving the door open.

 I step inside puzzled and stunned by the eerie silence as I pull my muddied boots off and sit them by the door. Usually, Sirius would be eating breakfast at the vacant table before me if he wasn’t in his chair by the library window.

 Remus is stood with his back to me, filling the kettle at the sink. I notice his hands are shaking as the werewolf murmurs, voice surprisingly even and composed, “Tea, Harry?”

 However, I know my old teacher’s distraction methods by now and stride towards him, lifting the heavy kettle from his unsteady grasp, “Where’s Sirius?”

 Immediately, I can see something splinter the smile in Remus’ frozen expression like too thin ice under a clumsy foot and his trembling worsens. I frown, becoming increasing concerned for the man I have come to care for as an uncle. I place the kettle down and touch a hand against his shoulder, anxiety and the scratchy jumper itching at my palm, “Remus?”

 “I can’t find him anywhere,” the man blurts out suddenly and then to my horror, he chokes on the air in his lungs, releasing a sob which seemed to snag on his vocal chords, “... and it’s all my fault. I went looking for hours, like last time, but he could’ve been gone all night and I-I...”

 Those eyes meet mine and they are wilder and more terrified than I’ve ever seen them, “I even _read his book_...” He looks horrified by his betrayal of Sirius’ privacy and I know he must be utterly desperate to have done it, “...and he was thinking about leaving because I was unhappy and he didn’t know why. And now... Merlin, he could be anywhere! He could be hurt!... And I was so _stupid_ and... He’s gone!”

 I am so stunned by my old professor’s behaviour that I hardly know what to do. I feel suddenly like I am still an awkward teenager, unsure how to act around an emotional adult. I try to reassure him gently, “He can’t have gone far; we’ll find him. It’ll be fine.”

 I move back to the door, starting to slip on my boots again as the man exclaims, “No, it won’t.” His eyes are swollen and watery, the spiteful salt making the whites in his blue eyes blood-shot. He’s probably been crying all morning and that means that Remus gave up hope the moment he realised Sirius had disappeared. If anything filled me with worry it was that; something awful must have happened...

 Suddenly feeling the control of the situation within my grasp, knowing I would need some answers to help me find my godfather, I ask gently, “Why do you think he left?”

 “Oh Harry...” He whispers, expression lifting for the briefest of moments, a blue glimmer of triumph in his eyes, “Last night, he found our old photos... He-He _remembered_...”

 I freeze half-way through lacing my boots, back door wide open behind me, filling the kitchen with the sound of heavy raindrops spattering against the sodden ground which almost drowns out the soft stammer which tumbles from my mouth, “What?!”

 The respite is short and his face creases into crumpled defeat once more, “He remembered... maybe not everything, but... he remembered things... things that will have shocked him and I don’t think he could cope just like before... when he ran out into the snow...”

 His voice is suddenly filled with choking anger as he collapses into one of the kitchen chairs, body shaking so hard he can no longer stand, “And I just... I just made everything worse! I should’ve stopped him; I should’ve realised what it would do, but I was just so... I couldn’t _stop_... I didn’t think! ...And then when I woke up this morning, he was gone and... Oh God! It’s just like before! I don’t think he’s coming back!”

 There was nothing I could think of that would be so terrible it would drive Sirius from the only place he knew again, nothing as painful as the guilt he had felt the first time he ran away. There must’ve been some misunderstanding; perhaps Sirius had just needed to clear his head or perhaps he hadn’t thought that Remus would worry...

 “What did he remember?”

 The panic-stricken werewolf looks up slowly and I can see the weary surrender etched across the man’s face. I think that in this moment he is so beaten that he would spill all his secrets if it just meant Sirius was returned to him safe and sound. Our eyes meet and I know that he is about to explain everything, tell me something that has been a secret for years, as he murmurs, “Love... He was in love before... at least I thought he was, but he never said for sure...”

 The minute he says it, I realise just how awful a discovery like that must’ve been on Sirius, especially if the woman he’d loved had married, moved on, maybe even died. I shudder at the thought of losing Ginny like that, spending eight years of my life without her because I couldn’t remember her. For Sirius to suddenly find out something he thought he should’ve _known_ , must’ve broken his heart...

 I ask the obvious question almost dreading an answer, “With who?”

 “With Moony, of course...”

 I spin and Remus’ head jolts up to the figure stood in the doorway. Sirius Black is soaked through, robes filthy along the bottom, boots caked. His cheeks are flushed pink from the chill of the rain and his dark grey eyes are staring past me at Remus, filled with the same storm clouds as the sky. His shoulders are tense, his body seeming like a spring pulled taut, soon to snap back into shape. I am suddenly filled with memories of that night in the Shack because although Sirius is so different, there is life in him again. In this moment, I can see a man where the ghost would’ve stood, someone bursting at the seams with repressed emotions.

 As the shock of his sudden appearance fades, what my godfather has just said sinks in. I glance slowly back at my old professor whose eyes are still brimming with tears, jaw slack as he stares at the man in the doorway, all motor function seemingly forgotten. I know then just how certain Remus had been that Sirius wasn’t coming back.

 Water trickles down into Sirius’ eyes from the black hair plastered to his scalp as he steps past me like I’m not even there and mumbles, “I’m sorry I took off like that... Should’ve left a note or something... but I had to... I had to _think_...”

 He seems to lose the power of speech briefly and then, frowning, he shakes his head slightly as if trying to shake the words he needs to say out of him. His voice is a frustrated growl as he drips pathetically, staring at the man in the chair, "Right, let’s just get a few bloody things straight...” His voice tails off again, a water droplet falling from the tip of his nose to the tiled floor, “Why didn’t you tell me?!”

 Remus stares at him both frightened and determined, hurried justifying words broken by his cracking voice, “I didn’t want to do any more damage; Dumbledore said that you... you had to remember on your own, that any shocks could wipe whatever was left away.”

 “I needed to know!”

 At Sirius’ snapped reply, Remus flinches, quiet voice carrying a hint of outrage, “You think it was easy for me! For four years, you thought of me as no more than your house elf!”

 “You _let_ me think it!” Sirius’ voice is filled with anger, but I don’t think it’s aimed at Remus as he hisses, “You chose to suffer as you always do rather than take the chance you knew I would’ve wanted you to take!”

 “If I’d ruined everything because I was too selfish, if I’d been the one to destroy the only possibility I had at getting you back, I would’ve suffered far worse!” His voice strengthens, eyes filled with a decayed ache only Remus could’ve carried so wordlessly for so long, “I was willing to endure it because there was still some hope that you would remember me eventually, even if it was only the day I died! As my friend, you deserved my patience and my loyalty in healing you, not pressurisation by greed for my own happiness.”

 They both stare at each other angrily before Sirius asks tersely, uncertainty quivering almost imperceptibly in his furious words, “Was I just your friend? Is that what you are saying?” Fingers white-with-cold, the rain-soaked man pulls off his cloak violently throws it into a corner. He begins to pace silently for a few moments, leaving tracks of water and earth in his fuming wake. His eyes rise up again as he growls, “What _was_ I to you, Remus? I could never work that out and I still can’t. Did you ever love me?” When Remus flinches again and blanches, he repeats the question fiercely, swiping the accumulating liquid from his brow, “Did you?!”

 Sirius’ silver eyes are still sharp like blades as he interrogates his friend, some desperation I can’t quite grasp contorting his face, “Do you love me, Remus? Answer me!” Remus is shaking, face ashen, unable to meet Sirius’ gaze. My godfather kicks one of the kitchen chairs flying across the room, shouting, “I _can’t_ remember because there is nothing _to_ remember! You would never say it! Never! For once in your fucking life, will you just _open up_?! Do you love me?!”

 “In-Ineffably.”

 The soft sound is enough to stop Sirius dead. I glance nervously between the two, Remus staring at some spot on the floor well away from Sirius, who in turn is staring at the splintered chair.

 There is silence for a long time and I try to digest all I’ve heard, wondering if I should say something or stay silent. I run over the whole scene again from the beginning. I remember what Remus had said, everything slipping into place. _‘It’s all my fault’, ‘I should’ve stopped him,’ ‘when I woke up he was gone...’_

The past few years fall into contrast, the blurred edges sharpening just as the world had when I’d first been given my glasses. An overwhelming sense of pity and then nauseating guilt rise in my throat. Remus, my dad’s friend, _my_ friend, had been in love with my godfather, had been desperately praying for a miracle and I had never realised how much he was suffering, never done anything to help. I’d almost avoided him and now my behaviour sickens me.

 Remus had been looking after Sirius, but who had been looking after Remus?

 Sirius’ rigid frame shifts slightly and I’m broken from my thoughts. The tension in the kitchen is almost tangible, the air feeling stuffy and reluctant to be breathed. Sirius’ face relaxes, the frown smoothed away as he looks at his friend again.

 There’s something there in his eyes, something I vaguely remember seeing when I was thirteen as Remus had taken his friend’s hand and helped him up from the floor. At the time I had felt too angry and betrayed to notice it. Now I recognise it, I still can’t quite translate what it means, unable to draw from what I had seen eight years ago. It had all happened so quickly that night, a card pack full of emotions shuffled and re-shuffled and dealt out in some peculiar order that made memories of the events hazy and unreliable for a teenager who had scrutinised them from every angle as I had.

 For the first time since he entered the room, my godfather glances at me. It is brief, but long enough for me to be able to predict what will happen. His eyes lower to the floor for a moment as he mutters gruffly, “Now that’s settled...”

 And in one long squelching stride he reaches his friend, clasps his face in his hands and presses his mouth tightly to the other man’s. My ex-professor releases an involuntary sob of relief and surprise, sounding almost like a laugh. Sirius hardly pulls away as he mumbles, “I missed you, you hopelessly self-less prat!”

 Remus laughs properly this time, not trying to disguise the liquid that makes his eyelashes cling to one another as he clenches his shaking fists around the sodden material at Sirius’ chest and pulls him in for another kiss. My godfather slips with a muffled yelp of surprise, mud slick on the floor, falling practically sprawled over his lover, both chuckling between fervent kisses.

 Awkwardly, I wander back to the door and out into the garden, an unwanted intruder in a moment both men had been waiting for for twenty years. I am glad to feel the cool rain on my scorching cheeks. It is all such a shock, but now the basics are set out before me, I notice the clues that were there all along. In ways it had always been so obvious; Remus had devoted himself fully to Sirius’ restoration, had rebuffed Tonks’ advances and, despite his depressive situation, had refused to leave it. Why had no one ever questioned a friendship that was powerful enough to destroy a man?

 Unsure quite what to tell Ginny when I get home, I start to head back down to my apparition point when I hear someone cry out, “Harry!”

 When I turn, I see my godfather for the first time since I’d glimpsed him that night at the Shack before the Kiss. Not the burnt-out figure sat in his armchair, watching the seasons change through a pane of glass and blank ignorant eyes; _Sirius_. I see the grey eyes glittering with barely contained joy, the handsome grin, the sloping grace of his limbs as he jogs out of the door towards me; I see Sirius just as those who’d known him when he was young had described. And as the man enfolds me in a huge bear hug, heartily shaking with barking laughter, I know it was the first time that Sirius had seen his godson too.

 ~~~ * ~~~

 Epilogue: Incandescent

  _Remus Lupin Esq._

_Probably in Sirius’ bed_

_With Sirius (!)_

_Not just HAVING A LIE IN!!!_

_Sirius’ Shag Pad,_

_London_

_I am only writing to inform you and that lump of a so-called Gryffindor hiding under the duvet like a third-year Hufflepuff GIRL beside you that in light of your nightly activities (and the fact you didn’t tell me!!!) I have decided to demote you both from your positions as vice and principal best friends to that of mere acquaintances!_

_I am mortified that, not only did you not tell me, but that you, two Marauders for Merlin’s sake, were so indiscreet that my darling Evans figured it out before me! Unacceptable!! (She’s very sneaky, by the way; I enclose a couple of her incriminating photographs which she has made well-hidden copies of and is planning to use as black mail when necessary!)_

_Seriously, why didn’t you tell me? Well, I guess I know why you didn’t tell me. I can practically see you, Moony, alphabetising your bookcase manically, pretending this isn’t happening and Sirius, pacing, wrought between punching me and hugging me for finding out. There are many reasons I wouldn’t tell me either; in fact on many an occasion I have tried to hide information from myself, understanding from many a Tongue-Lashing of the Irate Female Red-Head variety that I can be ‘an insensitive little wart who makes inappropriate jokes, lewd comments and graphic gestures when he is uncomfortable’. But I digress..._

_As usual, I guess I haven’t chosen the most subtle way of admitting I figured it out, but I wanted to show you I’m OK with it. Thought it might’ve been a prank at first and I won’t deny that, when I actually added both you and Padfoot’s previous behaviour into it, I wasn’t a bit shocked, but I’m not going to disown you two or anything so stop panicking, put down Defoe, Dickens and Dumas and come round here when you finally come up for air,_

_Prongs_

_P.S. Padfoot, I wish to remind you of how you stole Araminta Ashington off me in Fourth Year. I’m afraid that even though she was not, as it turns out, the true love of my life, you ruined a perfectly good, if not awkward and hormone-y, relationship DESPITE the fact we all know now that only Moony ever floated your boat!!! Outrageous Treachery of the First Degree, Old Boy!!!_

_And so, I have decided, when I have married the Red-Headed Wonder, Goddess of Perfection, Power and Pure Evil, and amassed an army of dashingly handsome heirs, I will SMITE you and then ask Moony out for a drink or to a Library conference (you and I both know that he cannot resist the Siren call of a group of people ANALYSING LITERATURE) and see how you like it!  MWAH HA HA HA HA!_

_P.P.S Moony, owl me if you and Dog-breath don’t work out!_

  

Sirius looks at the photographs attached to the old piece of parchment in my hand. I was much younger, dressed in Gryffindor uniform, Sirius stood beside me. It had been our last day, before the feast. Everyone had left the common room and we’d told James and Peter to go on without us. I should’ve realised at the time, when Lily turned up a few minutes late to the feast, flushed and smirking with omniscience at us...

 In the photograph, the second the portrait hole closes, I literally collide with a surprised Sirius, bowling us both into the wooden paneling of the wall. I can still hear the muffled thud in my ears as we struck it, Sirius’ laughter soon stifled as I started kissing him fiercely...

 “I can’t believe I didn’t remember you,” Sirius whispers. I look over my shoulder at him, the two of us lying on the old plum coloured sofa in the living room, far too short for our long legs. He is still staring at the picture bewildered, “I mean it wasn’t just like I fancied you once; I _adored_ you. I used to spend our time alone together fighting between listening to all the interesting things you had to say or... well, shutting you up.”

 I snort and pick up another photo album from the chest sat on the floor in front of us, “I never ever got to finish a thought process when you were around.” I flick open the cover and smile, “Look, baby James.”

 Sirius drops the letter immediately and looks over my shoulder at the image; a two-year-old James Potter stood holding one of his parent’s wands in a podgy fist, the room filled with bubbles, innocent expression in his large hazel eyes. Sirius chuckles, the deep sound vibrating against my back as we press even closer together.

 I flip the page, watching our friend grow. Although I’d salvaged these from Godric’s Hollow after that dreadful night, I’d never really looked at them or even mentioned their existence to Harry. I’m generally good about accepting the past, but I think I still haven’t fully come to terms with what happened. I never had any one to talk to about it, no one who could truly understand, all the friends who should’ve been there for me taken in an instant.

 Sirius places the album back in the box and silently I thread my fingers through his. It’ll get much easier now with him here; the good things will be easier to remember, the times when we’d all feared haemorrhaging because we’d been laughing so hard.

 “Moony?”

 “Hmmm?”

 When he says nothing more, I shift so I can see his face...

 It’s the devil’s smile which I notice first; wicked and wide and tempting. His voice is hushed, older, hoarser, but no less persuasive, “Come with me.”

 Something in my head tells me I’ve fallen for this before, but I’m too awestruck to quite remember as I waver, far quicker than I once would have. It takes no longer than a brief instant of surrender and I’m bewitched, ensnared by eyes glinting madly as the man leaps over me and the long clever fingers entwined with mine pull me up from the sofa.

 I barely have time to slip on a pair of shoes as I’m whisked out into the darkness, the rain slashing down in huge pounding sheets. I don’t complain about the bone-numbing cold that engulfs me within seconds, clothes next to useless protection against the amount of water pouring from the heavens. I’m unable to do much accept follow Sirius into the chaos of the November Night, follow him as if he is my only sense of direction, a star used to find myself whenever I am lost.

 My common sense tells me it’s treacherous on the mountain when the weather is like this, but I’ve been careful for far too long; now I ache for danger, watching as the black haired man before me grins into the pelting rain, pulling me with him, upwards.

 Lightning splits the sky in harsh electric forks, the air filled with the smell of white fire, only revealing the true power of the dense blackness above. The thunder roars and Sirius impatiently speeds up our ascent to the peak. I see its outline against the fearsome sky as it is illuminated once more, trying not to lose my footing on the steep scree slope, the wild explorer before me following a path only he can see.

 Suddenly, I am yanked up onto a fairly flat point nothing but the jaws of the storm before us, buffeting our vulnerable forms. My eyes are full of rain and wind and I blearily watch as Sirius’ hand slips from mine and he dives to the very edge.

 He spreads his arms out like wings, fingers pale, dark robes and hair whipping away from his body like he is flying, like he is in the midst of some heathen ritual; I’m mesmerised as he stares into overwhelming dark and does not bend under it weight. He has faced the storm and found himself invincible once more. I see that power fill him once again, zipping along every fingertip like threads of lightning, up every strand of hair flickering in the gale. His eyes are filled with molten silver and some elation that only he could feel soul bared and tested by the storm.

 Then he laughs... He laughs and laughs like a man possessed, closing his eyes shut and _feeling_ for the first time. The icy rivulets of water are swept across his bare skin as he throws his head back, face turns up towards the maelstrom, and he laughs helplessly. Somehow the tears I feel building do not want to be shed, seeming too humble on the mountaintop where Sirius and I are engulfed by a raging tempest. I chuckle as well.

 Eventually, the thunder becomes less frequent and the howling wind quietens; we are silent as the clouds break. Slowly Sirius’ arms fall back to his sides and his eyes open. Without a word, I slowly approach the abyss and the man stood at its edge. I slip my arms around his waist, eyes following his own as he leans back against me.

 We stand amongst the calm of the stars and find peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for getting all the way to the end!
> 
> Feedback is the opium of the masses. Or something like that.


End file.
